Professor Alschner is a globally renowned expert on international trade and investment law. His most recent book, Investment Arbitration and State-Driven Reform: New Treaties, Old outcomes (Oxford University Press, 2022), released earlier this year, uses state-of-the-art legal data science to present an empirical analysis of the evolution of investment treaties. It argues that changes introduced in a recent generation of investment treaties have failed to balance investment protection and non-economic concerns in practice. Professor Alschner is also an editor of the World Trade Review (WTR), a member of the editorial board of the Journal of International Economic Law (JIEL) and a member of the Academic Council of the Institute for Transnational Arbitration (ITA).
Professor Alschner works at the intersection of law, computer sciences and social sciences. He is the co-leader of the uOttawa Legal Technology Lab, which conducts innovative research on the implementation of technological tools in the law, including, for example, legal text mining and the automation of legal processes. The lab recently opened a new home on the uOttawa campus.
The Hyman Soloway Chair in Business and Trade Law is named after the late Mr. Hyman Soloway, Q.C., a long-time senior partner in the law firm of Soloway Wright. The Chair seeks to provide opportunities for students, professors, alumni and the international law community to engage, learn and be inspired by leading experts in the field through clerkships (at venues such as the International Court of Justice), membership and sponsorship of international law organizations (such as the Canadian Council on International Law), conferences, workshops, speakers, communications and other activities. Professor Alschner inherits the Chair from Professor Tony VanDuzer, who held the position from 2018-2022.
This year will see the resumption of the Hyman Soloway Research Colloquium, with Professor Olabisi Akinkugbe (Dalhousie) lined up to speak in the Fall Term and Professor Maria Panezi (University of New Brunswick) visiting the law school to speak in the Winter Term. This year will also see the launch of the inaugural Hyman Soloway Prize for the Best Research Paper, awarded to the top paper completed as part of the law school’s Trade and Investment Law LLM. The inaugural prize will be awarded on September 27, 2022. Finally, two new Hyman Soloway research fellowships – one for a doctoral candidate and one for a postdoctoral researcher – will be launched early in 2023.
Click here to visit the web page for the Hyman Soloway Chair in Business and Trade Law.
Congratulations to Professor Alschner on this well-deserved appointment!
