A Conversation with

Meg Kinnear

Secretary-General
International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID)
World Bank
Washington, D.C.

With

Prof. Andrea K. Bjorklund
L. Yves Fortier Chair in International Arbitration
and International Commercial Law
McGill University Faculty of Law
Montreal

This interview is the latest in a series organized by the ITA Academic Council to record the evolution of modern international arbitration in the words of those who have led it.

[AI Transcript]

[00:00:00] Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the luncheon for the 20th Anniversary ITA ASIL Conference in Washington, DC. Seeing this large crowd here is so exciting, so thanks so much to each of you for making the journey to Washington, DC to be here with us. I'm Victoria Sahani, Associate Provost for Community and Inclusion and Professor of Law at Boston University, and I also have the honor of serving as a Chair of the Academic Council for the Institute for Transnational Arbitration.

[00:00:31] I previously chaired the ITA Academic Council's interview project, Preserving Perspectives, International Arbitrators in Their Own Words. And I want to recognize the current chair of the Preserving Perspectives Project and vice chair of the Academic Council, Professor Karina Baltogh. for her important work on this interview and all the interviews in the series.

[00:00:50] And I'd also like to thank the members of the Preserving Perspective Project Committee, Professor Catherine Titti and Professor Mohammed Abdel Wahab. I'd [00:01:00] also like to thank the chair of the ITA, Tom Sikora, whom and the ITA staff, led by David Nguyen, whom we missed seeing here in person today, for helping to bring this luncheon interview to fruition.

[00:01:11] I also would like to thank the ITA's partner in organizing today's ITA ASIL conference, the American Society for International Law. The ITA Academic Council's interview project, Preserving Perspectives, International Arbitrators, in their own words, is important and wholly unique among projects hosted by various international arbitration organizations worldwide, in that we interview prominent international arbitrators and record the stories of their lives and careers as they themselves tell it.

[00:01:41] Afterward, the videos of these interviews are memorialized forever on the ITA website, so that future generations of international arbitration practitioners can watch and learn from them. Today's interview is extra special because this will be our first ever in person interview during the ITA ASIL conference.[00:02:00]

[00:02:00] To mark this momentous occasion, we have an extra special interviewee, Meg Kinnear, Secretary General of the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes. We're also grateful to Meg for her longstanding support and involvement in our inner and in our preserving perspectives interview project.

[00:02:18] Meg has graciously served as the interviewer for two other interviewees during the course of the project. Albert Yon Vandenberg and Carolyn Lamb. Thank you so much again to Meg for supporting and contributing to our interview project. Then as interviewer and now as interviewee. Meg will be interviewed by Andrea Bjorklund.

[00:02:39] I'm here to introduce you to Andrea Green, Professor of Law and Fortier excuse me, E Fortier Chair in International Arbitration and International Commercial Law at McGill, and a past chair of the ITA Academic Council. Andrea was the first Academic Council member and chair to carry forward David Caron's vision of the Preserving Perspectives Project and grow it to its current success as a highlight of [00:03:00] ITA's programming.

[00:03:01] Now, without further ado, the Academic Council of the Institute for Transnational Arbitration is very pleased to present our Preserving Perspectives project interview of Meg Kinnear, interviewed by Professor Andrea Bjorklund of McGill.

[00:03:21] Thank you very much, Victoria. It's a great pleasure to be here and to see so many so many familiar faces and so many old friends. I have the daunting task of inter of introducing Meg, who, of course, is, like many people here, in need of no introduction, especially to this crowd. But I will attempt to perhaps fill in a few of the details in her career with which you might not be as familiar.

[00:03:46] You might know that she's a Canadian national, born and raised in Montreal, a graduate of Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, in political science. A graduate of McGill with an LLB and a graduate of the [00:04:00] University of Virginia with a an LLM. So she's been called to the bars of both the District of Columbia and Ontario.

[00:04:08] Her early career, with which you might be less familiar, was in litigation representing the government of Canada in federal and provincial courts and before administrative tribunals. She served as Executive Assistant to the Deputy Minister of Justice of Canada from 1996 to 1999, and then she led the Trade Law Bureau from 1999 to 2000 as Director, and then as Director General.

[00:04:35] As you all know, she was elected Secretary General of ICSID in 2009, and was the first full time Secretary General. She's currently in her third term. But let's go back to some of your early experience. Did you always know that you wanted to be a lawyer? I'm the nerd who has to admit yes. Basically as soon as we realized at about age [00:05:00] 10, I had no scientific aptitude.

[00:05:02] That was the next choice, and I stuck with it. What types of experiences did you have as a young person that helped you form the core of who you are and the professional woman that you've become? I was very fortunate to go to a very small school. It was a girl's school. I went from grade 2 to grade 11.

[00:05:24] We wore tunics and everything you would think of almost in the British tradition. But it was also an amazing place where you were really encouraged, sometimes forced, to do things like public speaking and writing, and really forced to find your voice. And I have to say that I have thought many times through my university career and subsequent career, how that gave me such a good grounding and that was a real gift.

[00:05:51] That, but for that I might have gone a different direction. So you went to law school at McGill. And an example of the kinds of law [00:06:00] students we get at McGill. No commercial. But when you were at McGill, did you have an interest in international law or in arbitration? Yeah, I have to admit I did international political science in undergrad.

[00:06:13] So I went to McGill thinking, of course, international law would be what I would do. And my first general international law course I found very frustrating. I found it highly abstract. There was never a concrete solution to a problem. It may have just been the course I particularly took, but it actually steered me a bit away from international law and more into administrative law which in Canada is very much the study of judicial review of government bodies, government decision making, that kind of thing.

[00:06:45] So I steered into constitutional and administrative law. In terms of arbitration, I am sad to say that when I went to school, there was no arbitration course. Not even Professor Brierley? No, not even.[00:07:00] And I'm really happy to say that Andrea has more than remedied that with an amazing series of courses at McGill on arbitration and created a real specialty.

[00:07:11] But when I went to law school, that was not per se. Something that was being taught in Canada. So I really only picked that up later as a subset of litigation. You said that in law school you'd really were somewhat drawn to administrative law. Did that continue when to, when you went to the United States to do your LLM at Virginia?

[00:07:31] Yes. Yes. Although another shock for me, I just had assumed that when I went to the U. S. to study this at the master's level, this would be the kind of administrative law I was used to. Again, mostly judicial review. And at the University of Virginia, it was a lot more with respect to a study of actual decision making in the political process.

[00:07:54] I had to change focus quite a bit. So it was good, it was a learning curve. But it certainly wasn't what I had [00:08:00] thought I was going to be doing that year. Yeah. So you you went to, back to Canada after you did your LL. M. And how what was your first job? What was your first law job? In Canada, we have something we call articling or a clerkship.

[00:08:18] And basically before you're allowed to be called to the bar, you have to do a year of practice under the tutelage of lawyers. So I did that, but my first job, real job was with the Department of Justice for Canada. And it was in what they called their civil litigation section. And it had an amazing remit, which is essentially, we acted as the in house lawyers for the government of Canada in all sorts of cases.

[00:08:44] So you were doing constitutional law, administrative law fender benders, when a government driver bumped into somebody on their messages all sorts of work, which was a wonderful experience. And I have to say, I've always recommended a [00:09:00] government career, at least as part of a career, to anybody who asks, because the unique thing that I found very early was...

[00:09:07] I would be there with my briefcase and there would be six or eight lawyers on the other side. So you've got a huge amount of responsibility early on and it was a bit sink or swim. But with that kind of challenge most people swim and I swam as fast as I could. Yeah. So what part of that practice did you find the most exhilarating?

[00:09:32] Because of my admin law, Affection. I found the admin law type of work very interesting. And we had all sorts of different government bodies that, made various decisions. So I found that really interesting. And at a certain point Canada had adopted its constitution, and in particular what was called the Charter of Rights.

[00:09:53] So I was in the litigation section when the Charter of Rights came along. And all of a sudden, we had this incredible open field [00:10:00] of people bringing cases, and what does this thing mean? And what does this guarantee mean? And Canada had a very interesting part called Section 1, which basically added a proportionality test to all charter rights, which was quite different.

[00:10:14] In fact, I think in the political discussions, it was meant to be. the American system and to put in what they thought was a val a flexible valve. Doing that was incredibly exciting for us. But it must've, it was litigation of first impression, so you really had to think on your feet. Litigation of first impression and then we were often searching for like democracies and what their approach had been.

[00:10:38] So US, UK, that kind of thing. And that was also baked into the wording of the constitution. So it gave you that, what do other democracies do? Yeah. So what do you think is the most important skill for a litigator or counsel before tribunals to have? I believe firmly that the most difficult [00:11:00] skill, but the most important skill, is cross examination.

[00:11:03] And when cross examination is done well, it is a thing of beauty. But it is an extremely difficult thing to do. And you need to have... A lot of planning, a lot of preparation, and a lot of experience doing that. And I think one of the, one of the things that I was lucky to do was as part of my work with the government, I actually would do criminal court about once a week, and they would bring you 50 dossiers, and most of them were silly things.

[00:11:33] It's not silly, I shouldn't say that. But things, smaller things, like for example that somebody had sold marijuana to somebody at the local fair, or there was one my favorite was too many fishing lines in the fishing hole with the ice. But, all of which to say, this is where the career of litigators starts because you had to get on your feet, you got the file ten minutes before you were pleading [00:12:00]it, run through it.

[00:12:01] And then a witness came up and you didn't know what they were going to say. And it was a really good way to create instincts. As Rumpel says, you get up on your hind legs. Yeah. Did you have a mentor or mentors early in your career? And what did you learn from them? Yeah, I had some amazing mentors. I think I was incredibly lucky throughout my career.

[00:12:25] I worked with some of the very senior people at Canada's Department of Justice, and they all had some really eminent careers in constitutional litigation. So that was tremendous. And what I learned from them, as much as anything, was your theory of the case. Where do we want to go? How do we get there?

[00:12:44] And how do we argue that? How do we pull together the evidence we need? And I think one of the things that's really I appreciate was going to the essence of the argument. Don't throw 50 things against the wall. [00:13:00] Take your five best arguments, take the ones that are really going to be taken seriously and work with those.

[00:13:06] So I think that was a very useful lesson and they were all incredibly patient allowing me to do, submissions and cross examinations and that kind of thing. So I was really fortunate there. I also, in terms of mentors, think of one other counsel who was at the Department of Justice with me.

[00:13:23] And I think of her separately, not only because she was a mentor in terms of work, but she was a mentor in terms of How to be a professional and be a mom at the same time. And she had three children and she was a bit farther ahead. And so she was actually a very tremendous mentor in terms of you can do this whole thing is not going to come crashing to the ground.

[00:13:46] And that is very was really important. And I have to say I don't think there were a lot of people in that circumstance. So it was extra important for that reason. I've had the pleasure of [00:14:00] working, with you on a couple of different projects. But one of the things that I've always been struck by is your extraordinary work ethic and your ability to do so many things at once and to do them well.

[00:14:14] I'm, I want to say that for the NAFTA book, if John and I had been left to our own devices, we would still be having a glass of wine in the bar over there talking about how we were going to write that book one day. But Meg made us do it and she was the busiest person, yet she's the one who was always ahead.

[00:14:32] She's the one who was always ahead with her chapters and with returning comments on chapters. So did you learn that from somebody? Is that innate? Like where do you think those skills come from? Good question. I was probably the pain. In the rear end who was saying, get out of the bar, let's go.

[00:14:50] So I should probably learn that other skill as well. Good advice. And I know I've, some of my staff from Ixit are here and I know they can tell you like if she'll just stop [00:15:00] with the emails and with the ideas. It was just, there's an idea a minute here. But I think I learned that very much from my dad who was a very organized, very disciplined person.

[00:15:12] Anyway I've been the beneficiary of it, so thank you. That was the so do you have any particular experience that you viewed as, I don't know, formative or funny during, especially maybe during a professional transition? Yeah there are a number, but I think one of the ones that I remember very well was, When I moved to Canada's Trade Law Bureau I think two weeks after I got there, I was told that I was Canada's representative.

[00:15:42] to the Free Trade of the Americas Agreement, the dispute settlement chapters. And I literally, I knew nothing. I knew absolutely nothing about this. So I dug in, and I read, and I studied, and et cetera, et cetera. And down I went, I think at the time we were doing the [00:16:00] meetings in Miami, and I thought, if we work really hard, we can get this done in the next month or so.

[00:16:06] And I was very optimistic about this. Again, hauling people out of the bar, but and I realized after the first day, after lunch on the first day, we still had not got through the pleasantries of, I'm so happy to see my honorable friends again, and I'd be like, let's go, we've got something to write here.

[00:16:25] But it was a good experience in terms of what it also tells you is how important the relationship building is. especially in the negotiation process. Now sadly, we never got the FTAA dispute settlement chapter, but it was a very good experience from that perspective. What about at ICSID?

[00:16:46] Experiences at ICSID? Yeah. Yeah, ICSID has been a whole other... Amazing experience, I have to say. It's been the experience of my life. This is an aside, but actually Andrea was [00:17:00]one of the people who... Said to me, you ought to apply. And I said, oh, I don't think it'll ever happen, and et cetera. And my son at the time had a silly poster on his wall saying, you miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take.

[00:17:13] I went, alright, I'm just going to... Fate was speaking to me. But IXIT has been an incredible experience. And as some of it I expected. Obviously I knew about IXIT arbitration. I knew that from doing... NAFTA Chapter 11 cases so I knew that angle of it. I don't think I had a really good sense of what the organization is in terms of its place at the World Bank and in terms of the other types of responsibilities you have.

[00:17:45] So you're part of the senior management team at the World Bank where they talk a foreign language called economics. And you have to try very hard to add value added when what you're thinking about is, provisional measures and things like that. [00:18:00] But you also have this incredible relationship from an institutional perspective with various countries.

[00:18:07] And really explaining to them what you're all about and why you are something that is of value to them. More generally. Speaking a little bit in terms of the profession about why this is a valuable institution and why arbitration works. And I know I was at a conference yesterday and somebody said something about, the future of international arbitration and everybody nervously giggled.

[00:18:35] And I have to say I found that was almost a funny reaction. And I thought, why, this is not funny, it has every future and it's nothing to be nervous about. No one's saying it's perfect, but there is so much good and so much that works that's important to preserve. And I have to say that's one of the things that's a privilege about this job, is you see every day on the ground how it really works and how people are really [00:19:00] dedicated to making it work.

[00:19:03] So I think that leads very well into the next question, which is what do you think is the most or which of your professional accomplishments are most important to you? And why? Maybe it's because it's the most recent. I think obviously becoming secretary general has been the honor of my life.

[00:19:25] But in particular the new rules that we have just passed. has been a huge huge achievement and both exhausting but exhilarating. And it was a really incredible process. It was a lot of technical drafting, but it was also a lot of creativity. It was a lot of talking to people, a lot of suggesting ideas.

[00:19:47] It was a really interesting process. And I have to say we had a number of in person consultations with member states. that were fantastic. They were so interesting. And the ideas, [00:20:00] 150 some member states, all some with very high levels of ISDS experience, some with no ISDS experience, but everybody really coming to the table and participating.

[00:20:11] was absolutely incredible. So I think the net result is both a very good product but what I'm especially proud of, quite frankly, is that it got done. I recognize it is procedural, it is incremental, but to me it is concrete and it got done. And in an era where we hear so many ideas, which is good, ideas up in the sky, it's also good to have something that...

[00:20:37] Got done and is now having immediate impact. I'm pretty proud of that and proud of the staff at Ixin who are extraordinary. Yes the how has the practice of law changed since you first started? What do you think is the biggest change? Yeah, to me it's technology. When I [00:21:00] started out in litigation, we literally had typewriters.

[00:21:04] We would type up a submission or a pleading, and then when you wanted to... Edit, you would cut the parts you wanted to keep, tape it on top of the rest, and then photocopy so it didn't look like it was cut and paste. That is the original cut and paste, honestly. And I see now, what we can do literally with cut and paste and all the other type of skills.

[00:21:28] We can have thousands of cases at our beck and call. It is extraordinary, and I, obviously, it's an incredible tool, and it's fantastic. But I also think we need licenses to use responsibly, because there is also this huge temptation to cut and paste massive numbers of sites, and massive numbers of things that, are they really to the core of the argument?

[00:21:53] In fact, it's been an enabler of some good practices, but of some bad practices as well.[00:22:00] So shifting, shifting back a little bit, you, compared to some people in the room, you entered the practice of arbitration a little bit late. What was your first arbitration as counsel? My first arbitration as counsel I did a couple of, Labor arbitrations and those kinds of things, but my first investment arbitration was a case called Pope and Talbot versus Canada.

[00:22:27] I should tell you that when I first went to Canada's Trade Law Bureau, they had been a group traditionally that had done WTO work, and that was their specialty. And I felt like the new girl coming down the hall, and they were like, it's the new girl, make her do Chapter 11. And... Oh, okay, I'll do that.

[00:22:46] But it was actually an incredible experience. And one of the things that I always remark upon is this was all brand new. This was late 1990s, early 2000s, and that doesn't sound like a long time ago, and it's [00:23:00] not. But frankly, it was not easy to find law. It was not easy to find principles. We were often borrowing WTO type law which you rarely see now in an investment case.

[00:23:12] So we were really at first principles with all of this. So it was a fantastic learning experience. And I used to talk monthly with my colleagues in in U. S. State Department and in Mexico Economía. And we would all compare notes like, this happened, have you ever seen that? Oh no, I don't know, how, what would you do with that?

[00:23:33] So it was really quite extraordinary. And having done that, got to see some of the really interesting We got to negotiate the NAFTA notes of interpretation which was fascinating. And a number of bilateral investment treaties. So it really opened up a whole so you mentioned that this happened because you were new at the, at JLT, at the Trade Law Bureau.

[00:23:57] What had drawn you to applying [00:24:00] for the job at JLT? I had spent the three years prior as the Executive Assistant to the Deputy Minister of Justice, which was a really interesting job, and you got to see a lot of the political level. of policymaking in a big department of justice. So it was fascinating from that perspective.

[00:24:19] But it wasn't what I would say a hardcore law or hardcore litigation. And I was really missing that aspect of my career. The job came up at the Trade Law Bureau and the deputy minister I had worked for had actually been one of the original NAFTA negoti er, actually free trade, US Canada free trade agreement.

[00:24:38] Negotiators and he said you're going to love this stuff. It's really interesting. You ought to do this. So that's what drew me there originally. Wow. So you, you've been involved in a lot of cases as counsel as as I guess less at a more of a distance as secretary general, but do you have a [00:25:00]favorite international arbitration case and why would it be your favorite?

[00:25:04] I do have a favorite. A case that I keep coming back to for many reasons that I really think is fascinating is the whole Philip Morris in Uruguay case, which was at exit. I have been secretary general for a number of reasons. First of all, I think the facts are quite interesting. And for a while, one of my Uruguayan colleagues actually had brought five packs of cigarettes with labels that were in question.

[00:25:30] And I used to travel with those five packs of cigarettes because we'd use them as a sort of demonstrative when we did presentations. They got pretty dog eared and my luggage got pretty awful, so I threw them eventually. But A, because the facts were so interesting. B, because of all the media hype around this.

[00:25:48] You'll remember that when Philip Morris was working its way through, there were a lot of people saying, This could be the end of investment arbitration. Imagine if you can't pass anti [00:26:00] smoking legislation. So there was a lot of discussion and it was tied to investor state is not a good tool for this kind of dispute settlement.

[00:26:09] So I thought it was interesting from that perspective. And the other reason I think it's really fascinating is obviously you've got a very interesting and strong majority award. With Professor Bernardini and Judge Crawford and touching on the police power, which of course at the time was still, a very new thing.

[00:26:29] But then what I think is really interesting about it is if you go and read. The dissent by Gary Bourne, it's completely different. It is based on the court system of Uruguay. So it comes at it from a completely different perspective. But I have to say both the dissent and the majority I find extremely convincing.

[00:26:49] And I think it's a really a classic case. Yeah. Yeah. My, my judge used to say that if you read the, the claimant's brief and you weren't convinced, that was a [00:27:00] losing case, if you read the claimant's brief and then the respondent's brief, like they're both really good. They should be like, that's, if you're at the appellate court, it should be at that level.

[00:27:08] But in a sense, those difficult cases. You might say they're, it's interesting that you can have compelling and thoughtful decisions coming down in different ways. Speaking of kind of arbitral decision making, there's a lot of debate about whether arbitrators in investment disputes should be more concerned with developing the law or with simply deciding the particular case in front of them.

[00:27:35] Where do you come down in that debate? I have to say, I find that question frustrating because the process is obviously apply facts to law and sometimes it's more fact-based and sometimes it's more law-based. So I actually find the question and the concept that some arbitrators make law, some just decide cases is a bit of a frustrating concept to be honest.

[00:27:57] ? Yeah. [00:28:00] Yeah my, I have to say my judge Sam Irvin used to say, your primary job is to decide the case in front of you, but then you also do other things as well. But that's, so what do you think? You mentioned Gary Bourne's dissent. What is your opinion? There's been quite a lot of controversy over dissenting opinions.

[00:28:17] What do you think about dissenting opinions in arbitration? And there, there was even, there's even in Germany, it might be impossible to have a dissent on the grounds that is a betrayal of arbitrator confidentiality and that therefore in commercial arbitration, you can't have dissent. So where do you come down on the role of dissent?

[00:28:36] or the importance of having them. Yeah, and obviously it's situation dependent, but there is a role for dissents, especially where they are outcome determinative, or deal with something that is very much an open question in the law. But I have to say there is also value to consensus, especially in international arbitration, and sometimes you wonder if perhaps [00:29:00] procedural, small procedural dissents are necessary.

[00:29:03] Sometimes procedural dissents can be outcome determinative, so it's not one category or the other. But I think a well placed dissent, obviously, is very much a good thing. But that's the question that each arbitrator has to ask themselves. Is this going to contribute? What do you think are the most valuable things that arbitrators can do to control what are, seem to be perennial and maybe perennially growing problems about the costs and time allocated to international arbitration and especially investment arbitration?

[00:29:40] No, it is a huge issue as we all know. First of all, I don't place this entirely at the foot of arbitrators. I think. Everybody, including the institution, but also council, has got a large role in making sure that the time and cost is reasonable. And I worry that sometimes we don't.[00:30:00] I think one of the places where Investor State could do better is with the small and medium enterprise.

[00:30:06] And that is largely a function of cost. I know that we've put expedited arbitration rules in our new rules, and I'm hoping that will... But the biggest thing I think is to know your case and be in control of your case. So to come in knowing where you're going to go and also to let the parties know.

[00:30:27] And again, one of the devices we put into our new rules was a case management conference. And time will tell the extent to which people use this and how they use this. But I think it's extremely useful for tribunals to say to parties, here's an area I'd really like to hear more about. I've read your submissions on this and I understand them.

[00:30:49] If Council wants to continue down that road, obviously that's up to them. But I think Council hugely appreciate some guidance and some focus as the case goes on. And I think [00:31:00]arbitrators, if they know the case can give exactly that kind of guidance. One of the other things that people talk about as well is not having annulment paranoia, or fear that everything you do might incur an annulment.

[00:31:13] And I think, that may be a fair point. I think the rate of annulment is about three to five percent. So odds are that a decision that is taken in good faith and knowing what you're, what's in front of you is not going to create an annulable situation. So it's having control of the case.

[00:31:33] And really proactively managing the case. You said earlier that you thought technology was the biggest single change that you've seen in the practice of law since you started. How do you think that has affected arbitration in particularly, in particular? Again, as I say, great in terms of we have all the law at our Fingertips, literally.

[00:31:56] You look at something like a Yosmundi and that kind of thing, it's [00:32:00] extraordinary. You look at conflict checks people know what an arbitrator who's proposed for an appointment googled last week. It's just extraordinary the extent of information we have. That has a flip side of the coin, which is sometimes so much information makes it hard to handle, quite frankly, and it makes cases balloon.

[00:32:21] And that's the part we need to manage. Yeah. What about I'm thinking about, when you started, we, there was so little and now there's Investors State Law Guide, Yus Mundi, Investment Arbitration Reporter. So that has made a difference, but what do you think has made it, has happened to the actual practice of law?

[00:32:39] Like the length of memorials and the length?

[00:32:46] Affidavits, huge. I remember at one point in our, we had to open up the World Bank's backyard for where they put big shipments, basically the loading dock. And I [00:33:00] remember at one point, we were having boxes, this is when we still used boxes, thank goodness that, that's gone, but still boxes and boxes of documents, and there were so many, we had to get special permission for the loading dock.

[00:33:14] And I remember one of the arbitrators who was in that case said, partly sarcastically, but partly with a real grain of truth, if the World Bank loading dock needs to be open for these boxes, how am I supposed to read them all and Take it all in, which is not a bad question at the end of the day. And you see it as well with discovery.

[00:33:38] Discovery, can get pretty voluminous. If we think a little bit, we've talked, our morning was spent on reform of reform of reform, even this meta question reform of arbitration, but what do you predict for the future of international investment arbitration?

[00:33:59] This is [00:34:00] the million dollar question for sure. More than a million. I. I believe that there is a very strong future for investment arbitration, constantly improved as we see, and that's our effort. We constantly are making it better, but I think there is a real role for it. And if there were a better system, we would have thought of it.

[00:34:22] It does have its weaknesses, but I think it has a lot of strength. And I think it works really well in 99. 9 percent of the cases. And especially when you compare to a lot of domestic legal systems. I've often had states tell me we're so glad to have the ICSIP capacity because our courts take 15 and 16 years for a case.

[00:34:46] Or people don't feel confident about our courts. You hear that as a justification for investor state. But it is real, and it is strongly held by many states and many many people who are pursuing [00:35:00] investor state, so it's real. Yeah. So what advice would you give law students and young professionals today as they contemplate future careers in international arbitration?

[00:35:14] I would say 100 percent go for it. I think it is the most interesting. career in terms of litigation challenges, advocacy challenges, subject matter challenges when will you ever have to learn about whatever the political situation of a certain country or the mining policy of a certain country.

[00:35:35] It is really a quite extraordinary thing. But as you do that I'd highly suggest get different sides of it. Do the claimant side, do the respondent side. Come and do the institutional side. Every time you flip your perspective, you learn something and you go I wish I'd known that when I, made that submission or whatever.

[00:35:57] Take the opportunity to learn it from various [00:36:00] perspectives. So I think a closing maybe comment or question you mentioned at lunchtime we were having a conversation. You said you were actually quite risk averse. Yet, we've just heard that you've really done quite different, you've moved from very different different, very different pra types of practice of law to an institution.

[00:36:19] Do you have any regrets about that? In retrospect, I don't. No, in fact, as my experience has been, as every time I have changed jobs first of all, I'm so risk averse that I've been going, Oh no, I made a mistake. I want to stay right where I am. And then. Because I've committed to it, I've gone to this new job, and all of a sudden I've learned new things and said, this is the best job in the world, and then gone to the next one.

[00:36:46] My experience has been it just gets better, and what's been really interesting is that everything you learn in one job, you might think it doesn't carry you to something else, but it really does. When I was at the Deputy Minister's office, [00:37:00] They gave us media training. I thought, when are you ever going to need media training?

[00:37:04] You're not going to be talking to the press. Lo and behold, that occasionally happens in ICSID, so everything you learn just makes you a better, more filled out professional. I would say for sure, do not hesitate. Embrace challenges. And risk. And change. Thank you very much, Meg.

[00:37:26] Thank you for your time. Thank you all for your attention. And I'm sure that Meg will be delighted to chat with you afterwards if you have any further follow up questions for her. But thank you for being part of our oral history project. No, I say thank you.

[00:37:50] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Let me thank Meg and Andrea for a fascinating preserving [00:38:00] perspectives interview. We're very grateful to you both, but let me say that we are also tremendously grateful to Meg for everything that she has done over the so many years now. She has been a good captain who has steered this very precious and valuable institution.

[00:38:20] safely and true for many years and has saved it and preserved it to continue for future generations. For the younger practitioners, I should say that there was a time our great friend Antonio Parra was gone for a few years from ICSID. There were a few cases where some would say there were runaway annulment committees and we're all very worried about the future.

[00:38:47] of vixed and thankfully Meg appeared and took the reins of the institution and preserved it for many years so we're very grateful to make for [00:39:00] everything she has done and what she continues to do. I should mention that Meg just arrived from Paris last night from Paris arbitration week and tonight she's going to be on a train to Washington, D.

[00:39:10] C. because tomorrow and Friday on Central Working Group 3 will the court of conduct for adjudicators again. So she is truly relentless. Thank you again. Thanks Victoria for another great preserving perspectives program. Thank you to the audience for staying with us. I have to say looking around, there are so many

[00:39:38] I hope the younger members of the audience, the younger practitioners got to visit with some of you. Getting to know each other is one of the great benefits of the Institute for Transnational Arbitration, so I encourage you to mingle and get to know each other. With that, let me say that I hope you join us June 14th through the 16th in [00:40:00] Austin, Texas.

[00:40:01] For those who have been to Austin, they need no encouragement. For those of you who have never been to Austin, you need to come and see it for yourselves. We invite you to join the ITA for the annual workshop. This year we will be looking at the scope of remedies. Open to tribunals. So particularly interesting program also for tribunal members.

[00:40:25] And with that, ladies and gentlemen, we are adjourned. Thank you very