Symposium Agenda

10:30 AM – Registration

11:00 AM – Introductory Comments

11:10 AM – Allen Blair’s presentation on International Commercial Arbitration

11:50 AM – Won Kidane’s presentation on Multilateral Investment Court System: Its Design and Prospects

12:30 PM – Lunch

1:30 PM – John Rooney’s presentation on the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement

2:10 PM – William Fox’s presentation on Multi-Party International Arbitration: The Role of the Advocate and the Role of the Arbitrators

2:45 PM – Audience Q&A to the panel

Mr. John Rooney

John Rooney resides in Miami, Florida, where his legal and arbitral practice center on international commercial law matters.  He teaches the International Commercial Law seminar and International Business Transactions courses at the University of Miami School of Law.  He frequently serves as arbitrator for international commercial disputes.  He speaks Spanish and Portuguese, and is a member of the bar in Florida, Louisiana and Texas.  He can be contacted at rooneyjh@gmail.com or + 1 305-804-4084.

Professor William F. Fox

Professor Fox is semi-retired although he continues to serve as a visiting lecturer in India and China, as well as other places around the world. 

He has been a practicing attorney and a professor of law for more than 45 years.  He is currently serving as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Peking University, School of Transnational Law.  He also lectures in the Institute of Law, Nirma University, Ahmedabad, India.  For five years, he was Distinguished Scholar in Residence, Penn State Law School, University Park, Pennsylvania and for almost twenty years was a member of the global faculty, Centre for Energy, Mineral, and Petroleum Law, University of Dundee, Scotland.  He began teaching in 1973 at Boston University Law School and continued his teaching career with a thirty-one year stint at the Columbus School of Law, The Catholic University of America where he also served as dean of the law school from 2003 to 2005. 

Professor Fox has worked as an attorney or served as law professor in more than 30 different countries including an appointment as senior lecturer, Fulbright Program, Bandung, Indonesia.  He has been a senior associate member at St. Antony’s College, Oxford University and a visiting scholar at the London School of Economics.

Professor Fox is the author of numerous articles and more than seven books, including Federal Regulation of Energy (McGraw Hill, 1983), Understanding Administrative Law (Lexis/Nexis, 6^th edition, 2012) and International Agreements and Electronic Commerce (Kluwer Law International, 6^th edition, 2018).

Professor Allen Blair

Professor Blair is the Robins Kaplan Distinguished Professor of Litigation Skills and International Dispute Resolution, the John H. Faircy Professor of Empirical Legal Research, and a senior fellow in the Dispute Resolution Institute at Mitchell Hamline.  He’s also a Fellow with the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. He teaches and writes primarily in the areas of arbitration and international dispute resolution, contract law, and commercial law, with a focus on law and economics.    In addition to his teaching and writing, he serves as the on-site director for Mitchell Hamline’s Certificate in Global Arbitration Law and Practice program in London and is the faculty advisor and coach for the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot Court teams.

Professor Blair keeps connections with the world of practice, serving as Of Counsel at Greene Espel, and as an arbitrator or mediator in commercial disputes.  He also regularly represents pro bono clients, or consults with other attorneys representing pro bono clients, who are seeking asylum in the United States.

Professor Won Kidane

Professor Kidane is a Fulbright Scholar and a tenured Associate Professor of Law at the Seattle University School of Law. He teaches and writes in the areas of international arbitration and litigation, international and comparative law, international investment law, and a clinical course, among others. Professor Kidane has published a comprehensive book on dispute settlement in China-Africa economic relations focusing on investment and commercial arbitration. His new book, The Culture of International Arbitration, has been released in March 2017 by Oxford University Press. Professor Kidane is a co-author of two more books, Litigating War (with Sean D. Murphy and Thomas R. Snider, Oxford, 2013), and Global Issues in Immigration (with Raquel Aldana, Beth Lyon and Karla McKanders, West,2013). He has also published numerous law review articles in leading international law journals. 

Before joining the Seattle University Law School in 2008, Professor Kidane taught at Penn State Dickinson School of Law for three years. Prior to joining the Penn State Dickinson School of Law, Professor Kidane practiced law in Washington D.C. with the Law firm of Piper Rudnick (now DLA-Piper), and later Hunton & Williams. His practice focused on international arbitration and litigation. He continues to represent African States in high stakes international investment and commercial arbitration matters under a variety of rules including UNCITRAL, ICC, LCIA, PCA, and GAFTA. 

Professor Kidane currently teaches International Arbitration and Litigation, and Immigration Law and Clinic. During the summer, Professor Kidane also teaches international arbitration and dispute settlement settlement courses at the School of Transnational Law of Peking University in Shenzhen, China. Professor Kidane holds SJD from Georgetown, JD from the University of Illinois, LL.M from the University of Georgia, and LL.B from Addis Ababa University. He is admitted to practice law in the District of Columbia, Washington State, and Illinois.