Jose Antonio Rivas

Professor Rivas, currently a foreign attorney at Arnold and Porter in Washington DC, concentrates his practice in international investment arbitration. There he has been involved in the representation of a Latin American State in an ICC case; investment treaty cases and international commercial arbitration between private parties. He is former Foreign Investment Director of the Ministry of Trade of Colombia where he conducted a program to strengthen the State’s readiness in case of investor-State arbitration and headed the drafting and updating of the Colombian International Investment Agreement (IIA) Model. Based on this Model, he successfully concluded over twelve IIA negotiations with States from Latin America, North America, Europe and Asia which included bilateral investment treaties and investment chapters of free trade agreements (FTAs). In his former capacity he also lead negotiations for Colombia of cross border trade in services and telecommunications chapters of several FTAs. Professor Rivas is former Counsel of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) and has substantial experience on ICSID and UNCITRAL rules of arbitration. He received his Doctorate in Law in Juridical Science –SJD– with Distinction after writing on rules of interpretation in public international law and international trade law, GATT XXIV, and rules of origin of regional trade agreements. He has also been a Professor of Public International Law at the Universidad de los Andes in Colombia, and a trainer in public international law moot court competitions.