On Friday, 20 June, Suzanne Spears, Founder and Principal of Paxus LLP, will deliver the closing keynote address of the 2025 London Summer Arbitration School. The lecture will address Arbitration and Armed Conflict.
We live in an era in which the number of armed conflicts globally has reached the highest level since World War II, disrupting international trade, investment, and commerce, and leading to disputes subject to international arbitration. Investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) increasingly involves wartime expropriation, asset destruction, state contract breaches, and emergency measures, raising issues related to protection and security standards, war clauses, national security, and the doctrine of necessity. This also raises questions about whether arbitral tribunals can consider the laws of war in ISDS cases.
Armed conflict also affects international commercial arbitration, with concepts like force majeure, frustration, and coercion increasingly tested in cases involving business disruptions. Arbitrators also may be asked to address issues under the laws of war in commercial arbitrations.
This keynote address will examine the broader implications of armed conflict for ISDS and international commercial arbitration, including whether the threat of arbitration influences the likelihood of conflict or behaviour during conflict, and how tribunals balance investment protection and contract performance with the demands of war. Finally, it will consider the impact of armed conflict on the validity and enforceability of agreements and arbitral awards.
In 2022, Suzanne Spears founded Paxus LLP, a boutique law firm based in London specialising in public international law, international arbitration, and business and human rights. Suzanne has practiced in these areas for more than two decades in London and New York, including as a partner in the International Arbitration group at Allen & Overy (now A&O Shearman), where she also led the Business and Human Rights practice.
Suzanne’s prior professional experience includes serving with international affairs organisations, such as the Office in Colombia of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights, and the Council on Foreign Relations, where much of her work focused on the role of multinational corporations in armed conflict and peace processes.
Suzanne now acts as counsel, arbitrator, and CEDR-accredited mediator in international disputes. She is currently advising investors whose businesses have been disrupted due to armed conflict, military coups or occupations, and a State that is dealing with threats by illegal armed groups to strategic assets owned by foreign investors.
As adjunct Associate Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame Law School, Suzanne also teaches International Arbitration on the US university’s London campus. Her recent publications include Financing a Just Transition Based on Respect for Human Rights (Paxus LLP, 2025) and ‘Reconciling Human Rights and Investor Rights: The Case of Climate Change’ in Investment Arbitration and Climate Change (Kluwer, A. Magnusson & A. Ipp eds 2024).
The keynote will take place on 20 June 2025 at 5:30 pm London time. Online attendance is free of charge to those who registers in advance following this link.
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