The International Arbitration Group at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP in London has great pleasure in announcing the forthcoming arrival of three arbitration scholars. Dr. Petra Butler (Victoria University), Michael Ewing-Chow (National University of Singapore) and Dr. Mariana França Gouveia (New University of Lisbon) will join us as Scholars-in-Residence in 2015.
Gary Born, Chair of the International Arbitration Group, welcomed this year's Scholars-in-Residence: "We are delighted to announce the selection of our Scholars-in-Residence for 2015, all of whom continue our tradition of attracting the world's most distinguished academics to participate in the life of the practice."
Dr. Petra Butler is the Associate Professor at the Victoria University School of Law and Co-Director of the Centre for Small States, Queen Mary University of London. Dr. Butler specializes in domestic and international human rights, public and private comparative law, and private international law with an emphasis on international commercial contracts. In addition, she teaches the law of unjust enrichment. She has published extensively in those areas, including, together with Andrew Butler, The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990: a commentary (Lexis Nexis, second edition forthcoming August 2015) and, together with the late Professor Peter Schlechtriem, UN Law on International Sales (Springer, 2008, 2nd edition forthcoming 2016). Dr. Butler advises public and private clients and has been involved in some of New Zealand's recent high profile cases. She is a member of a number of advisory boards of human rights NGOs.
Dr. Butler is a graduate of the University of Göttingen and was a clerk at the South African Constitutional Court. Before joining Victoria University, she worked for the Ministry of Justice's Bill of Rights/Human Rights Team. She was a member of the National Advisory Council to the Human Rights Commission for the National Plan of Action for Human Rights. In 2004, she was the Holgate Fellow, Grey College, Durham University and in 2008 she held a Senior Fellowship at the University of Melbourne.
Dr. Butler is New Zealand's CLOUT correspondent for the CISG and the United Nations Convention on the Use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts. Dr. Butler has held visiting appointments at the Chinese University of Political Science and Law (Beijing), the University of Melbourne, the University of Adelaide, Bucerius Law School (Hamburg), Universidad de Navarra (Pamplona) and Northwestern University Law School (Chicago). She also has been involved in various roles in the Vis Moot for more than 10 years.
Michael Ewing-Chow is an Associate Professor and the WTO Chair at the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore (NUS). He was the Head, Trade/Investment Law & Policy of the Centre for International Law (CIL), Singapore. He has a First Class Honours degree in law from NUS and a Masters from Harvard Law School.
Mr. Ewing-Chow worked in Allen & Gledhill before joining NUS where he started the first World Trade Law course in Singapore and was involved in the negotiations for some of Singapore's early FTAs. He has been a consultant to the Singapore Government, the ADB, ASEAN, UNCTAD, the World Bank and the WTO. Mr. Ewing-Chow has advised government officials all over the world on trade and investment law as well as corporate governance. He has also recently been advising several ASEAN states on their BIT policies. In 2001, he assisted the Singapore Company Law Reform and Frameworks Committee with a major overhaul of Singapore corporate law and in 2008 was appointed to a Working Group of the Steering Committee to review of the Companies Act. In 2015, he was appointed to the Singapore Institute of Corporate Law Panel.
Mr. Ewing-Chow has taught in a number of universities in Asia, Europe and Latin America. Mr. Ewing-Chow also co-founded aidha, an NGO which provides financial education and microfinance opportunities for domestic migrant workers. For his work, he was the awarded the Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2007. He has received several teaching excellence awards and was awarded the Inspiring Mentor Award in 2009.
Dr. Mariana França Gouveia is the Associate Professor at the Nova University of Lisbon Law Faculty. She is the Director of the Alternative Dispute Resolution Laboratory where she coordinates the Graduate Program in Arbitration and the Master on Law and Justice Litigation and Arbitration. She is also Of Counsel at SRS Lawyers.
Dr. Gouveia was an advisor to the Minister of Justice and has previously held the position of Consultant to the Office of Legislative Policy and Planning, Ministry of Justice as well as Director of the Office of Audit and Modernization of the Ministry of Justice. She is the Vice-Chairman of the Arbitration Centre of the Portuguese Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a member of the board of Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation, and a member of the ICC Portugal's Arbitration Commission. She has also published several books and articles on mediation and arbitration.
Scholar-in-Residence Program
The Scholar-in-Residence Program brings talented professors, lecturers and other academics from all jurisdictions to our London office to collaborate with our international arbitration team on both professional matters and academic projects and to contribute generally to the intellectual life of the office.