Foreign Direct Investment International Moot Competition

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FDI Moot Competition AnnouncedSchools invited to participate in Inaugural 2008 Competition

The CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL LEGAL STUDIES in Salzburg, Austria announces the establishment of the annual Foreign Direct Investment International Moot Competition (the FDI Moot), together with Suffolk University Law School, Pepperdine University's School of Law and Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution, the Deutsche Institution für Schiedsgerichtsbarkeit, and the Dundee University Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law & Policy. Suffolk will host the first competition in 2008 in Boston, Massachusetts, the 2009 competition will be held in at the Frankfurt International Arbitration Centre, and Pepperdine will host the third in 2010 in Malibu California.

Aims of the FDI Moot

Increasing international investment has been accompanied by the rapid development of a new field of international law that defines the obligations between "host States" and foreign investors and creates procedures for resolving disputes in connection with those obligations. Bi- and Multilateral Investment Treaties, national investment promotion legislation, and "internationalised" investment contracts have proliferated in the last two decades. Many of these envisage the resolution of disputes via direct arbitration between host state and investor. The leading institution for this is the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), but arbitrations may be administered by other institutions, or the parties and arbitrators themselves. Investment disputes involve not only vast sums of money, but also probe the panopoly of rights, duties, novel relationships and shifting objectives at the juncture of national and international law.

The FDI Moot promotes among law students -- future practitioners, civil servants, academics and businesspersons -- an appreciation of these issues and a practice-oriented understanding of international investment laws and arbitration as an effective mechanism for the settlement of international investment disputes.

The FDI Moot also serves as an opportunity for academics and practitioners from the around the world to meet and discuss the latest developments and assess the talent in these fields emerging from law school worldwide.

Structure of the Competition

The FDI Moot involves a hypothetical case in connection with an investment by a private investor in a foreign host state. Each year’s hypothetical is prepared by the competition’s Advisory Board, composed of distinguished academics and practitioners in the fields of international arbitration, investor-State arbitration and international investment regulation. The FDI Moot spans a period of approximately six months each year and has two phases: the writing of memoranda for claimant and respondent and the hearing of oral argument based upon the memoranda.

Support

The FDI Moot's pursuit of these aims is endorsed by several international organisations and institutions working in the fields of foreign investment and international arbitration and by prominent practitioners and scholars in the field who serve on its Advisory Board. Academics and practitioners who are expert in international investment regulation and/or international arbitration serve as arbitrators for the oral phase of the competition. Law firms, investment promotion agencies, law publishers, financial institutions and the like are invited to sponsor events at and around the oral hearings (e.g. receptions), as well as teams competing in the FDI Moot (e.g. registration fee, travel, lodging or dining grants) and prizes.

Investor-State Arbitration: Perspectives on Legitimacy and Practice

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