This event was organised in honour of Prof. Zachary Douglas KC, as the dedicatees of the Delos Remote Oral Advocacy Programme (ROAP) EMEA 2023. The event took place on 5 September 2023 and was moderated by the ROAP EMEA Co-Convenors, Christina Schuetz.

About Prof. Zachary Douglas KC

Prof. Zachary Douglas KC has a substantial practice before international courts and tribunals as counsel, arbitrator and expert witness, and also frequently appears before the English courts and the courts of other common law jurisdictions in cases with a public or private international law element. He is a Professor of International Law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva and was formerly a member of the Faculty of Law of Cambridge University. Zachary is recognised as a leading specialist in public international law and arbitration by Chambers and Partners and Legal 500 both in the Global and UK editions.

Zachary has been appointed as an arbitrator in more than 150 cases under the ICC, LCIA, SCC, UNCITRAL, Swiss and ICSID Arbitration Rules with an equal split between investment treaty and commercial arbitrators.  He has served as a chairperson and as sole-arbitrator in more than half of those cases.

Zachary has been instructed by States in relation to proceedings in the International Court of Justice and the Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and has acted as counsel in cases before the English courts and other municipal courts relating to state immunity, human rights and humanitarian law, state succession, environmental law, constitutional law, challenges to investment treaty awards, private international law, civil fraud and money laundering. He has represented individuals and companies in proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights and has also acted in dozens of cases before the Court of Arbitration for Sport, having formerly represented the International Olympic Committee.

In addition to contentious matters, Zachary has advised governments on issues of public international law (law of the sea, treaty law, international human rights, sovereign immunity, humanitarian law, state succession), arbitration legislation and constitutional reform. He has also advised multinational companies on issues of corporate social responsibility and international humanitarian law.

Zachary is fluent in Russian and French and has conducted bilingual arbitration proceedings in both languages. He is the author of one of the leading studies on investment treaty arbitration ‘The International Law of Investment Claims’ published by Cambridge University Press as well as a number of other books and articles on a range of topics relating to public and private international law.