Welcome
The Center for Global Energy, International Arbitration, and Environmental Law at The University of Texas School of Law offers an extensive and unique curriculum to students interested in these areas of the law. The Center is also a focal point for interdisciplinary analysis, debate, and discussion of the legal and policy issues relevant to energy, arbitration, and the environment.
RECENT FELLOWSHIP
Corey Lewis (UT Law class of 2013) has been awarded a prestigious summer fellowship with the Environment, Energy, and Arbitration Center at UT Law School to help expand and maintain a database of state and local laws related to chemicals policy. U-Massachusetts Lowell and NEWMOA (the Northeast Waste Management Officials’ Association) created the original database and approached UT Law to collaborate in the future updating of this important source of information. The summer fellow will also conduct an analysis of the most significant developments in state and local laws occurring over the last few years. NEWMOA will be funding the summer law fellow.
RECENT COMPETITION
The Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot
This April the UT Law Energy Center sent a team of students to compete in the The Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot. There were 240 law schools from 100 countries represented. Two of our students, Ji Nin Loh and Emmanuel Garcia, received Honorable Mention for their individual oratory skills.
The Vis team - Jeremy Clare, Jennifer Goodwillie, Ji Nin Loh, and Emmanuel Garcia.
The goal of the Vis Arbitral Moot is to foster the study of international commercial law and arbitration for resolution of international business disputes through its application to a concrete problem of a client and to train law leaders of tomorrow in methods of alternative dispute resolution.
ONE YEAR LATER
In 2011 Mark Brasher completed the LLM Program concentration in Global Energy, International Arbitration, and Environmental law. Now he’s practicing international arbitration and energy law as an associate at Vinson & Elkins in Houston.
Mark Brasher, LLM 2011
TWO NEW ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS
Ms. Sylvia J. Kerrigan is Vice President, General Counsel, Secretary of Marathon Oil Corp. Ms. Kerrigan graduated from Southwestern University, cum laude, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy, political economy and English in 1986. She joined Marathon in 1995, and has been in her current position since 2009. Previously, Kerrigan worked at the United Nations Security Council’s Commission d’Indemnisation in Geneva, Switzerland (UNCC) for two years, and the law firm of Bell & Murphy for five years.
Mary E. Kelly has served on numerous state advisory groups and is a frequent speaker at legal and other conferences. She held various positions with the Environmental Defense Fund for the eight years prior to founding Parula LLC in July 2010. Ms. Kelly’s areas of expertise include water law and policy, ecosystem restoration law and policy, U.S./Mexico border environmental issues, strategy development, grant writing, strategic fundraising and non-profit management.
RECENT SYMPOSIUM
International Arbitration in Latin America: State Intervention in Investor-State Disputes
With the rise of globalization and international investment, a new field of international law has rapidly developed that defines the obligations of host states toward foreign investors. On Thursday, February 23, 2012, the Energy Center and the UT Law School hosted a symposium on recent developments in international arbitrations arising between investors and Latin American governments.
Jennifer Thornton, Andrés Jana and Dr. Alvaro Galindo speaking at the recent Symposium on International Arbitration in Latin America: State Intervention in Investor-State Disputes.
Jennifer Thornton, Andrés Jana, Dr. Alvaro Galindo and James Loftis.
Featured speakers included:
- Andrés Jana of Bofill, Mir & Alvarez in Santiago, Chile. Mr. Jana is one of the leading experts in Latin America on the law of international arbitration. He currently serves as Chile’s delegate to the United States Convention on International Trade Law.
- Dr. Alvaro Galindo, Director of the International Litigation and Arbitration Unit of the Solicitor General Office, Republic of Ecuador. Dr. Galindo has written extensively about the development of arbitration as a means of international dispute resolution in Ecuador.
- Jennifer Thornton, Special Counsel at Baker Botts LLP in Washington, D.C. Ms. Thornton is an expert on public international law and international investment arbitration. Before joining Baker Botts, she was a member of the NAFTA/CAFTA arbitration team of the United States Department of State.
- James Loftis of Vinson & Elkins in Houston. Mr. Loftis specializes in international dispute resolution and is an expert on international law and treaties. He is also a member of the ICC Commission on Arbitration.
RECENT CONFERENCE
“Trading Places” Property Rights and Human Rights Agenda Conference
The Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice at the University of Texas School of Law recently held its eighth annual conference.
For many social movements throughout the world, the question today is not whether there is or should be a human right to property, but what type of property—individual/collective, formal/customary, public/private—international and domestic rights regimes should facilitate.
This multidisciplinary and comparative conference explored these conflicting trends, in the hope of uncovering hidden assumptions, learning from varied experiences, and exploring which property regimes might best advance the human rights agenda in different contexts. Conference panels explored topics such as changing conceptions of property, the role of property rights in dispossession and redistribution, and the implications of private titling.
Carol Rose, a professor of law at Yale Law School where she teaches classes on environmental law, natural resources law, property, land use, and intellectual property law.
Samuel Moyn, professor at Columbia University, works primarily on modern European intellectual history and on the history of human rights.
Some of the other speakers included: David Kennedy, Manley O. Hudson Professor of Law and Director of the Institute for Global Law and Policy at Harvard Law School; and Gerald Torres, a professor and Bryant Smith Chair in Law at the University of Texas School of Law. He teaches classes on environmental law, Indian law, property, and water law.
The event was co-sponsored by The Center for Global Energy, International Arbitration, and Environmental Law, the Department of Government, The Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law, the South Asia Institute, the School of Law, and the Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, all at the University of Texas, and by the Institute for Global Law and Policy at Harvard Law School.
New in 2012: HOT NEW COURSES
Oil and Gas Taxation
Oil and Gas Taxation covers the United States federal income taxation of domestic oil and gas operations and transactions. The course examines taxation associated with the operational life cycle of oil and gas operations including exploration, development, production and abandonment. The study of transactions involving oil and gas interests analyzes acquisition, disposition, structuring and investment. Course participants learn the historical context and developement of oil and gas provisions found in the U.S. tax law.
Global Energy Transactions
This three credit, multidisciplinary, course focuses on identifying, understanding and developing strategies for the numerous legal, geoscience and commercial/economic issues that arise in the context of selecting, funding, developing, operating and decommissioning an international oil and gas project. Students will have the opportunity to examine and solve “real world” problems that arise in the context of international energy investments.
Environmental Policy and Law
This course is about environmental law, a subject that necessarily includes consideration of environmental science, environmental economics, and environmental policy as essential elements of its analysis. In addition to teaching about the substance of the laws pertaining to the environment, the course pursues a broader goal of teaching about how the legal system functions in an area of vital public concern.
Coastal Watersheds
This course fosters an integrated understanding of the science, law and policy relating to issues such as land use, water use, and climate change in coupled watershed-coastal ocean systems. The course is interdisciplinary and listed in both the Law School and the Department of Marine Science. There are three major course components: (1) topical lectures, (2) literature discussions, and (3) case studies.
