Keynote Speaker

Dr. Matthew Parish

“Common law in the Isle of Liberty: plotting a course as a centre for international disputes”

Full text of the speech is available here

Matthew Parish is an international lawyer specialising in cross-border arbitration, litigation and enforcement, international trade, foreign investment, resource extraction and export, emerging markets and public international law. He is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and accepts appointments to sit as an arbitrator across Europe.

He has broad experience before a variety of international courts and tribunals, including arbitration before the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), United Nations Commission On International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) tribunals, the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA), the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce (SCC), the Grain and Free Trade Association (GAFTA), the Federation of Oils, Seeds and Fats Associations (FOSFA), the London Maritime Arbitrators’ Association (LMAA), the European Court of Human Rights and the European Union (EU) courts in Luxembourg. He holds a solicitors’ higher rights of audience (all courts) qualification in England and Wales and frequently advises on contentious issues of English law before English courts and tribunals.

Dr Parish has a particular focus on issues of international law affecting emerging markets, with experience most recently covering Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and has dealt with expropriation claims arising out of alleged government confiscations. He also has extensive experience of arbitrating shipping and international trade disputes under trade associations’ arbitral rules and of claims under international investment treaties. Dr Parish has authored publications on a variety of topics, including investment treaty law, English insurance law, European Commission competition law, international project finance, EU litigation, regulation of international trade, rule of law in transition economies and the legal role of international organizations in post-conflict countries. His doctoral thesis, on public international law arbitration, was supervised by the Honorable Richard Posner of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, IL.

Dr Parish is a member of the Association Suisse de L’Arbitrage and the Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn, a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and was formerly a visiting fellow of the British Institute of policy committee based in New York. He was formerly a committee member with the British Swiss Chamber of Commerce and Vice President of the Oxford and Cambridge Society in Geneva. International and Comparative Law. He teaches two postgraduate degree courses on commodities trading at the University of Geneva, where he lectures on international litigation, arbitration and enforcement of judgments, and he is a frequent guest lecturer on international relations at a number of universities across Europe. He is the Co-Chair of an International Law Association

Matthew Parish is a former UN peacekeeper in the Balkans and formerly served as Legal Counsel at the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development in Washington, DC. He is the Managing Partner of the Gentium Law Group in Geneva, and previously served in a senior role in the selection of the next UN Secretary General in 2016 by supporting the campaign of Vuk Jeremić to promote transparency and merit. Matthew is a key political supporter of the new Secretary General, Antonio Guterres.

He holds an M.A. and B.A. from University of Cambridge, with Triple First Class honours, C.P.E. and L.P.C. qualifications from the College of Law in London, both with Commendation and an LL.M. and a J.S.D. from the Law School of the University of Chicago.