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Please join the International Relations Speaker Series as they host Emilia Justyna Powell, Professor of Political Science and Concurrent Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame.

Are states willing to honor their international obligations with private parties as much as they do with other states? We explore this question by analyzing 115 arbitral awards administered under the auspices of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) between 1902 and 2020. The PCA began as an institution to address inter-state disputes, went dormant during much of the twentieth century, and resurged as a major forum for investor-state arbitrations in the twenty-first century. We argue that three mechanisms—the nature of consent, the parties’ ability to forum-shop/shape the procedures, and the legitimacy of proceedings—make states more likely to comply with international obligations when dealing with other states. The empirical evidence suggests that, even when governments are likely to honor obligations towards private parties, they comply significantly faster when dealing with other states.

Emilia Justyna Powell is a Professor of Political Science and Concurrent Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame. She has written extensively on international law, international courts, international dispute resolution, territorial and maritime sovereignty, the Islamic legal tradition, and Islamic constitutionalism. Her prominent publications include two books published in Oxford University Press: The 2023 book, The Peaceful Resolution of Territorial and Maritime Disputes (with Krista E. Wiegand), and the 2020 book entitled Islamic Law and International Law: Peaceful Resolution of Disputes, which has won two best book awards (the International Law Section, and the Religion and International Relations Section, International Studies Association). Professor Powell is also the author of a Cambridge University Press (2011) book Domestic Law Goes Global: Legal Traditions and International Courts (with Sara McLaughlin Mitchell).

She has been a fellow at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, Durham University, and at the University of Copenhagen Law School, icourts Centre for International Courts. Born in Toruń, Poland, Emilia Justyna Powell received education in the University of Nicholas Copernicus (Poland), Jean Monnet Center for European Studies, the University of Cambridge, and the Florida State University.