Catherine Kessedjian is Professor emerita of the University Panthéon-Assas Paris II. Until 2016, she was the Deputy Director of the European College of Paris and Director of Studies of the LLM in European Law. In 2016, she was Visiting Professor at Padova University (Italy) and in 2017 Wainwright Senior Fellow and Visiting Professor at McGill Faculty of Law. She was Hauser Global Visiting Professor at New York University School of Law in 2004, 2008 and 2011, and Visiting Professor at Yale Law School in January 2010. She acts as arbitrator in a selected number of International Commercial and Investment Disputes. She also acts as mediator in French and English (www.m4bb.com). She is a member of numerous professional organisations, notably the American Law Institute (ALI) and the Institut de droit international. For ALI, she presently acts as a member of the International Advisers Committee for the Restatement on Foreign Relations Law. She is the President of the French Branch of the International Law Association and Vice Chair of the global ILA.

Her current research focuses on two aspects of international dispute resolution. One deals with the international adjudicator. Who is that person charged with solving international disputes? What are the requirements to become an international adjudicator? What are the component of the independence and impartiality required from an international adjudicator? What are the consequences for the rule of law of the increasing recourse to an international adjudicator? These are some of the questions Prof. Kessedjian will discuss while at the MPILU. The second aspect of Prof. Kessedjian’s current research concerns Corporate Social Responsibility and its link with Investment Law and Private International Law, both from a substantive point of view and from a procedural point of view.