Procedural Issues Distract from Victims in Chevron Case

Procedural Issues Distract from Victims in Chevron Case
American Society of International Law - Fairmont Hotel
Perhaps no pending case confronts the complexity of international law and its regulatory claims across boundaries as the Chevron/Ecuador dispute filed regarding alleged environmental damage in the Amazon. That case and related proceedings raise many of the most pressing issues important to international law scholars and practitioners, such as the efficacy of international dispute resolution, the role of international arbitration, and the role of transnational law in domestic courts. This panel will use the Chevron/Ecuador case as a starting point for discussing the relationship between public and private international law and the use of that law to regulate transnational conduct. Which problems is international law particularly well-suited to solve? Which seem to defy its regulation? What tools does international law have to manage this complexity? Where are best practices emerging? What has our profession learned in the last half-century? Is law, with its emphasis on rules and stability, conceptually and functionally capable of responding to the challenges of complexity? If not, how should law react? What do experts from outside the legal profession, from technology, finance, counterinsurgency, climate science, and risk, believe law can add? During the 2012 ASIL Annual Meeting we will address these questions and discuss how international law responds to complexity."