Dr. Borzu Sabahi

Dr. Sabahi’s experience includes serving as counsel and expert in international arbitrations commenced under various bilateral investment treaties, NAFTA Chapter 11, Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), and under major arbitral rules such as ICC, ICSID (including Additional Facility), and UNCITRAL (in ad hoc arbitrations before the PCA). In recent years, he has been particularly involved in matters involving the laws of a number of jurisdictions around the world, such as India, Kazakhstan, Laos, Libya, Malaysia, Nigeria, the Philippines, Romania, South Sudan, United States, Uzbekistan, Venezuela and Vietnam. He has dealt with disputes involving a range industries and issues such as oil and gas, renewable energy, mining, construction, royalty and licensing agreements, corruption, taxation, logistics and banking. Dr. Sabahi also has experience in representing clients in the World Bank sanctions proceedings. Prior to joining Curtis, he was counsel in an international law firm where he represented private companies and individuals in major international arbitration proceedings.

Dr. Sabahi is the co-Director of the International Investment Law Center at the International Law Institute (ILI), where he designs and oversees training programs for government officials from developing countries and professionals from the private sector on international investment treaties and investor-state arbitration. He is currently representing the ILI at the UNCITRAL Working Group III on the reform of the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). He is also an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University Law Center and served as a Lecturer-in-Law at Columbia Law School co-teaching seminars on investor State dispute settlement. He regularly serves as an advisor to SJD and PhD candidates at Georgetown and elsewhere. He has lectured in a number of countries including India, Nigeria, the Philippines, Singapore, and Turkey. Dr. Sabahi is a widely published author on various aspects of international investment law and arbitration (with more than 50 publications, including more than ten books), and his writings have been cited by international tribunals and the United States and Switzerland Supreme Courts. He is Co-Editor in Chief of the BRILL Research Perspectives on International Investment Law & Arbitration, an Editor of Oxford’s Investment Claims and an Associate Editor of the Transnational Disputes Management Journal (TDM). He regularly speaks at and chairs professional conferences dealing with various aspects of international arbitration. He is co-chair emeritus of the Annual Juris Conference on Investment Treaty Arbitration in Washington, D.C. (served for five years: 2012-2017). During his LL.M. studies, he was President of Foreign Lawyers at Georgetown (FLAG).