Boston University School of Law

Christopher S. Gibson

Education

University of Chicago
B.A., European and English History, 1982
General Honors and Honors in History; Dean's List 1978, 1982; Abram L. Harris Award for Outstanding Academic Achievements and Extracurricular Contributions; University of Chicago Scholarship; Illinois State Scholar; Phi Gamma Delta Leadership Award.

Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government
Master of Public Policy (M.P.P.), 1984
Concentrations in Energy Policy and Finance

University of California, Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law
J.D., 1988
AmJur Awards: Commercial Law, Criminal Law, and Civil Procedure; Editor, Ecology Law Quarterly; Northwest Regional Finalist Team, 1986 Jessup International Moot Court Competition

Experience

Boston University School of Law, Boston
Visiting Associate Professor of Law (Forthcoming Spring 2010)
International Business Transactions

Suffolk University School of Law, Boston
Professor of Law (2004-present)
Courses taught in international and domestic arbitration, international business transactions, international trade, intellectual property and Internet law. The 2008 recipient of Suffolk Law School's Cornelius J. Moynihan Award for Excellence in Teaching. Founder and Co-Director of Foreign Direct Investment International Moot Court Competition (FDI Moot) for investor-State arbitration. Coach for Suffolk's FDI Moot and Philip C. Jessup International Moot Court teams.

Steptoe & Johnson LLP, London
Partner (2001-2004)
Specialized in international dispute resolution, international transactions and intellectual property. Represented parties in international arbitrations and litigation and sat as arbitrator. Advised clients on wide variety of commercial, intellectual property, technology, telecommunications and related regulatory matters. Founding partner of London office, and pro bono partner as the firm founded the St. Hilda's Community Centre Legal Advice Clinic in East London.

World Intellectual Property Organization, Geneva, Switzerland
Head Electronic Commerce Law Section, Senior Legal Officer WIPO Arbitration Center (1997-2001)
First officer to hold this position in WIPO. Worked to formulate WIPO’s role and policies in relation to electronic commerce, new technologies and their impact on intellectual property.

  • One of the principal officers conducting WIPO Internet Domain Name Process and developing a dispute resolution policy and rules, with recommendations for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) that resulted in implementation of the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) now in effect for domain name disputes.
  • Represented WIPO with its Member States and other international organizations, and at numerous conferences and meetings throughout the world.
  • First joined WIPO as Senior Legal Officer in the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center.

Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro, San Francisco
Senior Associate (1995-1997)
General litigation and arbitration practice, with specialization in intellectual property matters.

United Nations Compensation Commission(subsidiary organ of Security Council), Geneva, Switzerland
Legal Officer, Section Head of Category "C" Claims Division (1992-1995)
Chief attorney responsible for presentation of claims to panel of Commissioners appointed to decide claims for individual loss. Managed legal development of issues and responses, and development of computer systems for processing over 400,000 claims for individual loss, representing approximately US$ 7.6 Billion. Supervised "C" Unit with staff of six lawyers and 18 paralegals. Conducted external relations with governments, intergovernmental and professional bodies.

Howard, Rice, Nemerovski, Canady, Robertson & Falk, San Francisco
Associate (1991-1992)
Worked in all aspects of firm's practice, with time split between appellate litigation and corporate and securities matters.

Iran-United States Claims Tribunal, The Hague, The Netherlands
Legal Assistant (1989-1990)
Legal Assistant to United States Commissioners Richard C. Allison and Charles N. Brower.

The Honorable Stanley A. Weigel, United States District Court for the Northern District of California
Judicial Clerk (1988-1989)
Worked on all aspects of the resolution and disposition of pre-trial motions, trials and settlements, including drafting of bench memoranda, opinions and judgments.

Bar Admissions

Admitted to Bar California (1988) and District of Columbia (2004)

Registered foreign Lawyer, United Kingdom (2001)

Professional Associations and Service

Founder and Co-Director, FDI Moot Competition

Co-Chair, ITA Workshop on International Arbitration (2010)

Vice-Chair, Academic Council, Institute for Transnational Arbitration (2009)

Co-Chair, Intellectual Property Interest Group, American Society of International Law

Organizer and Co-Chair, Symposium on Investor-State Arbitration: Perspectives on Legitimacy and Practice, Suffolk Law School

Co-Chair, ASIL-ITA Conference on the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal at 25 Years (2006)

Member, ICC Task Force on Amiable Composition in Arbitration

Member, American Bar Association, International Law and Dispute Resolution Sections

Member, International Bar Association

Special Consultant to UNCTAD on Ecommerce and IP Issues (2001)

Speaking Engagements

Professor Gibson has spoken at more than 100 conferences around the world on the topics of international dispute resolution, intellectual property, electronic commerce and policy-making. He has also presented at numerous workshops and seminars.

Publications

Designing Compensation After Upheaval: Insights from the Experience of the United Nations Compensation Commission, with Timothy Feighery &Cymie Payne, Oxford Univ. Press (Forthcoming 2010)

Latent Grounds for Investor-State Arbitration: Do International Investment Agreements Provide a Powerful (New) Means to Enforce Intellectual Property Rights? (Forthcoming in Karl P. Sauvant ed., Yearbook on International Investment Law & Policy 2009-2010)

A Look at the Compulsory License in Investment Arbitration: the Case of Indirect Expropriation (25 Am. U. Int’l L. Rev. – Fall 2009)

Arbitration, Civilization and Public Policy: Seeking Counterpoise between Arbitral Autonomy and the Public Policy Defense in View of Foreign Mandatory Public Law, 113 Penn St. L. Rev. 101 (Spring 2009)

Book Reviews: Redressing Injustices through Mass Claims Processes: Innovative Responses to Unique Challenges, by Permanent court of Arbitration ed., and International Mass Claims Processes: Legal and Practical Perspectives, Howard M. Holtzmann and Edda Kristjansdottir, eds., in American Journal Of International Law (2009).

Globalization and the Technology Standards Game: Balancing Concerns of Protectionism and Intellectual Property in International Standards, 22 Berkeley Tech. L.J. 1401 (2007)

The Iran-United States Claims Tribunal at 25: The Cases Everyone Needs to Know for Investor-State and International Arbitration, with Christopher Drahozal, Oxford Univ. Press (2007)

Chapter: Technology Standards - New Technical Barriers to Trade? in The Standards Edge, Sherrie Bolin ed. (Stanford Univ. Press 2007).

Iran-United States Claims Tribunal Precedent in Investor-State Arbitration, with Christopher Drahozal, 23 J. Int'l Arb. 521 (2006)

Book Review: Digital Crossroads: American Telecommunications Policy in the Internet Age by J. Nuechterlein and P. Weiser, in Bi-Monthly Review of Law Books (2005)

Book review: Legal Issues in the Global Information Society by Stephen C. Hicks and Michael L. Rustad eds., in Bi-Monthly Review of Law Books (2005)

WIPO Copyright Treaties Coming into Force, Computer and Recht Int'l. (2002)

Intellectual Property Issues and Standards, 11:5 Multilingual Computing and Tech. (2000)

Chapter: The Domain Name System and Issues for Developing Countries, in E-Commerce and Development Report 2002, UNCTAD/SDTE/ECB/2, (2002)

The EU Copyright Directive – UK Implementation, Convergence (January 2003)

IP Audits in the Internet Age, with Dudley Kneller, World eBusiness Law Report (2002)

New Numbering Convention by Oftel, Convergence (February 2002)

Ralph Lauren Loses String of UDRP Cases, Electronic Business Law (Aug. 2002)

State of Play for E-Commerce Directive, Convergence (July 2002).

Keeping the Confidence in International Arbitration, ICC Members Handbook (2002)

Digital Dispute Resolution, Internet Domain Names and WIPO's Role, Computer und Recht International (February 2001); re-published in The California International Lawyer.

Chapter: The Role of Intellectual Property: Creating a Positive Environment for Electronic Commerce," contribution to book by The Commonwealth Business Council titled E-Comm3: Commonwealth, Commerce and Communications (Nov. 2000).

Intellectual Property Issues and Standards, 11 Multilingual Computing and Technology, No. 33, Issue 5 (Aug. 2000).

WIPO Primer on Electronic Commerce and Intellectual Property, Editor and Principal Author, WIPO/OLOA/EC/PRIMER (May 2000).

Awards and Other Decisions, 9 Amer. Review Int’l Arb., Parker School of Foreign and Comparative Law, Columbia University (1998).

Enforcement of Foreign Judgments, International Litigation, The International Business Lawyer (Summer 1997).

Using Computers to Evaluate Claims at the United Nations Compensation Commission, Arbitration International, 13 J.London Ct. Int’l Arb., No. 2 (1997).

Arbitration in International Intellectual Property Disputes, The California International Practitioner, Vol. 8, No. 1 (1997).

Chapter: Mass Claims Processing: Techniques for Processing Over 400,000 Claims for Individual Loss at the United Nations Compensation Commission, in The United Nations Compensation Commission, Richard B. Lillich ed. (Transnational Publishers 1995) (published papers from the Thirteenth Sokol Colloquium on International Law, University of Virginia Law School (1994)).

Proposed Regulations Implementing the "Single Class of Stock, Requirement for S Corporations Create Tremendous Furor and Needless Complexity," with Stuart S. Lipton, 8 J. Taxation of Investments 334 (1991).

Note, Narrow Grounds for a Complex Decision: The Supreme Court's Review of an Agency's Statutory Construction in Japan Whaling Association v. American Cetacean Society, 14 Ecology Law Quarterly 485 (1987).

Creative Oil Stockpiling: Evaluating a Three Country Agreement and Designing a Negotiating Strategy, published by Energy and Environmental Policy Center, Harvard University Energy Security Program and submitted to United States Department of State (H-84-03(1984).