Ph.D student of the School of International Law was awarded the International Law in the XXI Century Award for the best scientific paper on public international law

Adam Nalgiev, a Ph.D student at the School of International Law of the Faculty of Law and a research assistant at the Laboratory of International Justice, was awarded the International Law in the XXI Century Award for the best scientific paper on public international law, hosted by International and Comparative Law Research Center. The topic of the paper: “Inconsistency in practice of investment tribunals on the issues of proof: does the reform have anything to offer?”.

The paper concerns the investor-State dispute settlement reform but approaches it from a different angle. The paper is first to analyze a well-known problem of inconsistent practice of investment tribunals and the ways of resolving it offered currently within the context of the tribunals’ approaches to the issues of burden and standard of proof which, in some instances, also happen to be diametrically opposite. Considering that the applicable law or circumstances of the particular case usually do not predetermine different decisions, such practice has no less negative influence on the legitimacy of the existing system of settlement of investment disputes and must be accounted for when discussing prospective reform options. The author seeks to evaluate the extent to which the reform options suggested today are capable of tackling the problem described, as well as offers to consider additional reform avenue – the adoption of the “soft law” instruments on the issues of burden and standards of proof in the shape of guiding principles.

As part of the award Adam received a cash prize of 300,000 rubles. Adam's paper will also be published in one of the next issues of the journal "International Justice".