Dr. Borzu Sabahi

Dr. Sabahi’s experience includes acting as counsel in international arbitrations commenced under numerous bilateral investment treaties, 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, Libya, Malaysia, Nigeria, the Philippines, 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, nationalizations, armed conflicts, human rights, environment, corruption and fraud, taxation, sanctions, logistics, real estate, banking, and allocation of waters of international rivers.

Dr. Sabahi has served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center since 2006 co-teaching a seminar on investor State dispute settlement. In 2014-2015, he also served as a Lecturer-in-Law at Columbia Law School co-teaching a course on the same subject. He regularly serves as an advisor to SJD and PhD candidates at Georgetown and elsewhere. He has lectured in-person in a number of countries including India, Nigeria, the Philippines, Singapore, Turkey, and Uzbekistan. In addition, he has appeared as a lecturer via video conference in a number of other countries such as Ghana, Greece, Libya, Mongolia, and South Africa.

Dr. Sabahi is a member of the Board of the International Law Institute (ILI), a non-profit organization in Washington, DC which promotes prosperity through the rule of law. Since 2008, he has also served as a course advisor on international investment law and arbitration, and co-director of ILI center on investment law, where he designs, teaches, and oversees training programs for government officials from developing countries and professionals from the private sector on arbitration related subjects. He is currently representing the ILI at the UNCITRAL Working Group III on the reform of the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). During the past five years, he has also collaborated with ICSID and ILI’s affiliate in South Africa (ILI-SACE) to organize trainings on investor State dispute resolution in Africa.

Dr. Sabahi is a widely published author on various aspects of international investment law and arbitration (particularly on assessment of damages), 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 also 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). He is fluent in English and Farsi.

• International Legal Framework Governing Assessment of Damages Caused to Foreign Investors in Armed Conflict (ICSID Review, 2024) (co-author with Farshad Rahimi Dizgovin)
• Some Preliminary Thoughts on AfCFTA Draft Investment Protocol, Serbian Yearbook of International Law (2024) (co-author with Prof. Don Wallace Jr)
• Transition to Clean Energy: Legal Challenges, August 2023, Transcript of Speech for Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Rule of Law Forum, available here.
• Observations on the Work of UNCITRAL Working III on the Topic of Damages, April 21, 2022, Transcript of Speech for a Curtis Seminar, available here.
• Investor State Arbitration (2^nd ed., Oxford 2019) (co-author with Prof. Don Wallace Jr. and Noah Rubins)
• Award on Damages, Max Planck Encyclopedia of International Procedural Law [MPEiPro] (Aug. 2019) (co-author with Carlos Guzman)
• International Investment Arbitration: A Global Perspective, March 8, 2019, Transcript of speech for Centre for Trade and Investment Law, New Delhi, India, available here.
• Business Guide to Trade and Investment, Vol 2 (Co-Editor with P. McCrory, A. Appleton, M. Umerov, Ian Laird) (2018 ICC/ILI)
• Principles Limiting the Amount of Compensation, in Contemporary and Emerging Issues on the Law of Damages and Valuation in International Investment Arbitration (Beharry ed., Brill 2018) (Co-Author with K. Duggal and N. Birch)
• International Investment Law and Arbitration - History, Modern Practice, and Future Prospects, Brill Research Perspectives on International Investment Law and Arbitration, Issue 1.1 (2018 Co-author with Ian Laird and Giovanna Gismondi)
• Natural Resources and the Law of the Sea, ILI Series on International Law, Practice and Arbitration, Vol. 2 (co-editor in chief with Ian Laird and Anne-Marie Whitesell, Juris Publishing/ILI 2017)
• Investment Treaty Arbitration and International Law: Volumes 6 - 11 (co-editor with Ian Laird, Frederic G. Sourgens, Todd Weiler, and K. Duggal, Juris Publishing 2013-2018).
• Yukos v. Russian Federation: Observations on the Tribunal's Ruling on Damages, TDM June 2015, reprinted in J. Damages Int’l Arb. (Aug. 2015) (co-author with D. Ziyaeva)
• Interim and Emergency Relief in International Arbitration, ILI Series on International Law, Arbitration and Practice (General Editor together with Laird and Whitesell, Diora Ziyaeva, Ed.)
• Trends in International Investment Disputes: 2013 Year in Review, Yearbook on International Investment Law & Policy (Oxford) (co-authored with Ian Laird, Frederick Sourgens, Nicholas Birch, and Kabir Duggal)
• A Revolution in the International Rule of Law: Essays in Honor of Don Wallace, Jr. (co-editor with N. Birch, I. Laird, J.A. Rivas, Juris Publishing, 2014)
• Certainty in Recovery of Damages for Losses to New or Incomplete Businesses - Three Paradigms: Biloune v. Ghana, Gemplus v. Mexico, and Siag v. Egypt, in id (co-author with Lukas Hoder).
• Case Commentary: Philip Morris v. Uruguay. No. ARB/10/7. Decision on Jurisdiction, 108 Am. J. Int’l L. 67 (2014, with Kabir Duggal)
• Occidental Petroleum v. Ecuador (2012): Observations on Proportionality, Assessment of Damages and Contributory Fault, ICSID Review-F.I.L.J. (July 2013) (co-authored with Kabir Duggal)
• Investor State Arbitration in Central Asia, TDM Tenth Anniversary Special Issue (2013) (co-author with Diora Ziyaeva)
• Compensation and Restitution in Investor-State Arbitration: Principles and Practice (Oxford University Press, 2011) (SJD dissertation) (see also section on Professional Honors below)
• International Investment Law Regime and the Rule of Law as a Pre-condition for International Development, in New Directions in International Economic Law: In Memoriam Thomas Wälde (Brill 2011)(Co-authored with Nicholas Birch and Ian Laird)
• Recent challenges to arbitrators in investment treaty cases – is there an emerging trend? 17(1) Arbitration News: Newsletter of the IBA Legal Practice Division 171 (2011) (co-authored with M. Kirtland)
• Moral Damages in International Investment Law: Some Preliminary Thoughts in the Aftermath of Desert Line v. Yemen, in A Liber Amicorum: Thomas Wälde - Law Beyond Conventional Thought (Jacques Werner and Arif Ali eds., CMP Publishing 2009); republished on TDM
• The New World of Unilateral Offers to Arbitrate: Investment Arbitration and EC Merger Control, 74 J. Chartered Institute of Arbitrators 211 (2008) (Co-authored with Gordon Blanke)
• Compensation, Damages, and Valuation in International Investment Law, in The Oxford Handbook of International Investment Law (Muchlinski, Ortino, Schreuer (eds.) Oxford University Press 2008) (Co-authored with Prof. Thomas W. Wälde); earlier version published in 4(6) TDM (2007) (see also section on Professional Honors below)
• The Role of Regional Organizations in the Implementation of the Resolutions of the Security Council (in Farsi) (نقش سازما نهاى منطقه اى دراجراى قطعنامه هاى شوراى امنيت), Ayneh Asar Publishers, Tehran, December 2000 (M.A. thesis)