This summer, Washington and Lee law professor Susan Franck lectured at the Arbitration Academy in Paris, teaching a special course titled “Empirical Assessments of Investment Arbitration.”
Prof. Franck’s students in the course were pioneers in that no other group of law students in the world has ever embarked upon a systematic study of empirical methods as applied to investment treaty dispute resolution. In addition to teaching things like the fundamental building blocks of social science methodology, including the difference between external, internal and construct validity, Prof. Franck instructed the students in the subtle details of null hypothesis significance testing and effect sizes and how it specifically applies to international investment law and arbitration.
Teaching at the Arbitration Academy is a high honor as the Academy is a selective group which – much like the Hague Lectures at The Hague Academy of International Law – only invites people of the highest caliber. In fact, Prof. Franck is among the youngest scholars ever to be invited to present in the history of the Academy. This teaching stint was a highlight of an already busy summer, which also saw Prof. Franck give presentations at two global law firms in Paris on the role of the international legal profession in investment treaty arbitration. In addition, Franck was invited to serve as an an external reviewer for the American Political Science Review, the flagship publication of political science in the US, and to join the Editorial Board of a new series on International Investment Law from Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.
