International Arbitration and EU Law event at Leiden University
In 2024, Nikos Lavranos (who teaches arbitration law in the EIBL Adv LLM programme) and Stefano Castagna (researcher at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria) together as editors published the 2nd edition of their acclaimed volume on “International Arbitration and EU Law” (Edward Elgar Publishing, Elgar Arbitration Law and Practice series).
A particularly notable feature of the book is the combination of parts on the impact of EU law on international commercial arbitration, on the one hand, and on investment treaty arbitration, on the other hand, followed by a third part on cross-cutting and future areas such as e.g. environmental protection or taxation.
Following a first book launch event held last year in London, another book launch conference was held at Leiden University on 11 June 2025 under the organizational auspices of the EIBL programme (Sheena Bruce, Konstantinos Lamprinoudis, Christa Tobler).
The keynote speech, on the impact of EU law on international arbitration, was given by Prof. Dr. Freya Baetens (Universities of Leiden and Oxford). It discussed three reasons why “the EU law camp” at times feels uncomfortable with the “international arbitration law camp”, and three reasons for the opposite constellation, followed by three suggestions for solutions. Interestingly from an EU law perspective, the suggestions for solutions also included the introduction of a preliminary ruling system enabling arbitration tribunals to turn to the Court of Justice of the European Union for questions relating to EU law – a suggestion, the speaker said, made previously in another conference where it was rather critically received.
The keynote speech was followed by input of a selected number of authors of individual book chapters, representing all of the previously mentioned three parts of the book. The keynote speech as well as the other contributions led to a lively discussion with the audience on a number of issues raised in the speeches.