A Mindblowing International Commercial Arbitration Seminar (If I May Say So Myself)!!

Sticking with the mantra of “work with nice, smart, and motivated people,” I had the absolute pleasure of organizing a seminar on international commercial/investment arbitration with wicked smart friends (Eva Chan, Guillermo J Garcia Sanchez, and Bas Van Zelst). Together with students and staff, we discussed topics including, but not limited to the history of Investor State Dispute Settlement mechanisms, trends against ISDS, UNCITRAL Working Group III’s efforts to reform, the EU proposal for a Multilateral Investment Court, and much much more. I promised the audience a mindblowing seminar at the beginning, and I feel like we were able to deliver on that grand promise. Looking forward to more future collaborations with this group, which is going to be on 13 April as Maastricht University and Texas A&M Law School conduct a joint investor-state investment treaty negotiation exercise. For those interested, sign up here!

Should We Talk about How We are (Not Really) Supervising Our Students with Their Thesis?

The Maastricht European Private Law Institute hosted a thesis workshop for our hard-working interns earlier this month. A longer write up of the event, sage advice offered by some of our staff, and a broader reflection on the problem of thesis supervision within academia here.

Billy Joel, C.S. Lewis & the Proposed EU Directive for Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence

I've had Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" stuck in my head for about a week now. Especially the chorus where it goes: "We didn't start the fire. It was always burning, since the world's been turning. We didn't start the fire. No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it." It's the last line that gets me. The fact that it’s in the past tense. What a downer. In light of all the crap that's going on in the world and the non-stop doomsday scrolling that I’m doing, my days feel like they are shrouded in worry and angst (it didn't help that my whole family had corona and our son now has chicken pox, but that’s neither here nor there).

I'm not entirely sure what the remedy is for my current malaise, but a text from C.S. Lewis seems somewhat on point (although I am not really a very religious man): "If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds."

So even though it is taking me a bit more time and effort to muster the motivation to write something for work (and to try and convince myself that it may actually contribute to something), here is my attempt at doing something sensible and human, even if it is just writing a silly blog about a new proposed law that may (or may not) make the world a slightly better place.

Come Join the Maastricht European Private Law Institute’s Thesis Workshop!!

I’ll be stepping away from MEPLI - which I have been a member of ever since I first became an “academic” back in 2012 - to focus more on other initiatives. So this workshop will be the last event that I will organize as a member of MEPLI and as its Student Intern Coordinator. I’m very happy and grateful that I’ve been able to recruit some of my favorite colleagues for this last hurrah and to be able to match them up with some of our very enthusiastic, hardworking students. Come listen to them share their research and (if you are a student) get tips from the staff on how you can improve your thesis! The topics will range from regulating deepfakes to whistleblower protection within the EU. Don’t forget to register here to get the link!