Public Purpose in International Law: Rethinking Regulatory Sovereignty in the Global Era

As part of the McGill Dispute Resolution Lecture Series 2015-2016, the Private Justice & Rule of Law research group has the pleasure of inviting you to a lecture by Ryan Reetz and Pedro Martinez-Fraga of Bryan Cave, Miami. Following on the success of their recent book launch, they will deliver a lecture entitled, “Public Purpose in International Law: Rethinking Regulatory Sovereignty in the Global Era”.

This lecture explores how the public purpose doctrine reconciles the often conflicting, but equally binding, obligations that states have to engage in regulatory sovereignty while honoring host-state obligations to protect foreign investment. The lecture examines the multiple permutations and iterations of the public purpose doctrine and concludes that this principle needs to be reconceptualized to meet the imperatives of economic globalization and of a new paradigm of sovereignty that is based on the interdependence, and not independence, of states. It contends that the historical expression of the public purpose doctrine in customary and conventional international law is fraught with fundamental flaws that, if not corrected, will give rise to disparities in the relationship between investors and states, asymmetries with respect to industrialized nations and developing states, and, ultimately, process legitimacy concerns.

A cocktail reception will follow.

This lecture has been accredited for 1.5 hours of Continuing Legal Education.

To register, kindly RSVP to kuzi.charamba [at] mail.mcgill.ca (subject: RSVP%20Reetz-Martinez-Fraga%20event) .