Regionalism in International Investment Law

Leon Trakman is Professor of Law and Immediate Past Dean, Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales. He has been appointed distinguished or visiting professor at the University of California, Davis; University of Wisconsin; McGill University; Tulane; and University of Cape Town. He has been awarded a Bora Laskin National Fellowship and a Killam Senior Fellowship, both in Canada. Professor Trakman is the author and editor of 8 books and over 100 articles on international commercial arbitration and international trade and investment law. As an international commercial arbitrator and mediator, Professor Trakman has served extensively as an inter-governmental trade adjudicator. He was appointed by US, Canadian and Mexican Governments under North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and before then, under the US-Canada Free Trade Agreement. Professor Trakman is a barrister in New South Wales, Australia, a barrister and solicitor in Nova Scotia, Canada and an advocate in South Africa. He holds masters and doctorate degrees in Law, both earned at the Harvard Law School. Nick Ranieri is in private practice, consulting clients on NAFTA related issues. He obtained his doctorate from the Tulane School of Law and is admitted to the Bars of Ontario and New York, as well as other bars in the United States. He was the Director of the Centro Juridico Para el Comercio Inter-Americana in Monterrey, Mexico and has served as a Panelist under the NAFTA Chapter 19 panel process dealing antidumping and subsidies matters. His professional experience has included counseling state entities on the creation of free trade zones as well as counseling private entities on issues dealing with foreign investment and expropriation. He has written on subjects relating to international trade and investment and has lectured at the ITESM School of Law. He was a founding member of the NAFTA Consortium on Legal Education and served on various alternative dispute resolution bodies throughout North America.