Erin O’Hara O’Connor holds the Milton R. Underwood Chair in Law at Vanderbilt University Law School, where she serves as Director of Graduate Studies for the PhD Program in Law and Economics.  She is a leading scholar in the field of conflict of laws.  Her recent work includes four books and a series of articles on choice of law, as well as articles that explore contractual dispute resolution, including arbitration and the effect of legal rules on jurisdictional competition.

Victoria Shannon Sahani is an Assistant Professor of Law at Washington & Lee University School of Law.  She is an expert on third‐party funding, international commercial arbitration, investment treaty arbitration, alternative dispute resolution (ADR), and civil procedure.  Professor Sahani co‐authored with Lisa Bench Nieuwveld a book entitled Third‐Party Funding in International Arbitration (2012) and published articles on the subject entitled Recent Developments in Third‐Party Funding in the Journal of International Arbitration and Harmonizing Third‐Party Litigation Funding Regulation in the Cardozo Law Review.  She is a member of the ITA Academic Council, the Task Force on Third‐Party Funding jointly organized by ICCA and Queen Mary University of London, and the Editorial Committee of the 2015 Benchbook on International Law, published by the American Society of International Law (ASIL).  Prior to joining Washington & Lee, Professor Sahani served for five years as Deputy Director of Arbitration and ADR in North America for the ICC’s Court of Arbitration and assisted the United States Council for International Business (USCIB) in nominating arbitrators, mediators, and experts for ICC cases.  Professor Sahani holds an AB from Harvard University and a JD from Harvard Law School.  She is a member of the bar in New York, New Jersey, and the District of Columbia.

R. Doak Bishop is a partner in King & Spalding’s Houston Office and co‐chair of the Firm’s International Arbitration Practice Group.  He holds a BA degree with high honors and departmental distinction from Southern Methodist University (SMU) (1973) and a JD degree with honors from the University of Texas Law School (1976), where he was Research Editor of the Texas Law Review.  Mr. Bishop has over 35 years of legal practice, with a focus on international arbitration and foreign investment disputes.  He is Board Certified in Civil Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization.  Mr. Bishop has served as a member of the Board of Directors of the AAA; member of the Board of Trustees of the Center for American and International Law; Past Chair of the ITA; Member of the US delegation to the NAFTA Advisory Committee on Private Commercial Disputes; Advisor to the American Law Institute’s Restatement of the Law (3rd) of International Commercial Arbitration; Adjunct Professor at SMU Law School (1999) (International Commercial Arbitration), the University of Houston Law School (2002) (Foreign Investment Disputes), the University of Texas Law School (2013) (Foreign Investment Disputes), and the University of Oklahoma Law School (2011, 2012) (Foreign Investment Disputes); Co‐Chair of the International Litigation Committee of the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Litigation Section (1998‐2000); and Chair of the Litigation Section of the State Bar of Texas (1998‐1999).  He specializes in international arbitration of international energy disputes, investment and infrastructure disputes, construction disputes, and environment issues.  Mr. Bishop has registered more than 25 ICSID arbitrations and represented investors in about 30 investment arbitrations against foreign governments.  He has also been arbitrator in about 75 arbitrations, including NAFTA and BIT arbitrations under the UNCITRAL Rules.  He is also editor of The Art of Advocacy in International Arbitration (2nd ed. 2010); co‐author with Professor James Crawford and Professor Michael Reisman of Foreign Investment Disputes:  Cases, Materials and Commentaries (2005); and an editor of Enforcement of Arbitral Awards Against Sovereigns (2009).

Marie‐Claude Rigaud is a professor at the Université de Montréal’s Faculty of Law, where she also acts as Associate Dean, External Affairs and Communications, and as Director of the Master’s Degree program for foreign students:  Business Law in a Global Context.  Her research focuses mainly on arbitration and other modes of dispute resolution, as well as professional regulation and ethics.  She is editor in chief of the Journal of Arbitration and Mediation/Revue d’arbitrage et de médiation, as well as a member of RéForMA and of the Canadian Bar Association’s Ethics and Professional Responsibility Committee.  Professor Rigaud has lectured at the Université de Sherbrooke’s Faculty of Law where she is an Associate Professor, the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, the Faculty of Law of the University of Nevada (UNLV), and the Faculty of Law of Sassari (Italy).  She is a graduate of McGill University’s Faculty of Law (BCL/LLB) and of Université Paris XII, where she obtained her doctorate with the highest distinction.  She is a member of the Quebec Bar and of the Law Society of Upper Canada, and she practiced law for many years in Toronto, Zurich, and Montreal before becoming a full time professor.

Mairée Uran Bidegain is Legal Counsel at the ICSID.  She joined ICSID in 2011.  In this capacity, she serves as secretary of tribunals, commissions and ad hoc committees in arbitration, conciliation, and annulment proceedings brought under the ICSID Convention.  She also participates in numerous institutional matters, including recently serving as co‐editor of the book Building International Investment Law: The First 50 years of ICSID, a publication of Wolters Kluwer in celebration of ICSID’s 50th anniversary.  Prior to joining ICSID, Ms. Uran Bidegain worked as an associate in the international arbitration group of an international law firm in Washington, DC (2006-2011).  She holds a law degree from Université Panthéon‐Assas (Paris II), a Master’s degree from Université Panthéon‐Sorbonne (Paris I), a Master of Laws degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and has been a guest speaker at numerous conferences and seminars and is currently an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.  She is admitted to practice in New York.  Mairée Uran Bidegain speaks English, French, and Spanish, and is originally from Colombia.