Michael Waibel LL.M. '08 wins prestigious Deak Prize
April 22, 2008
Michael Waibel
Michael Waibel LL.M. '08 was awarded the Francis Deak Prize by the American Society of International Law for his paper entitled "Opening Pandora's Box: Sovereign Bonds in International Arbitration." The award was presented on April 10 at the Society's annual general meeting in Washington, DC.
"I am deeply honored and very grateful to receive the Deak Prize," said Waibel. "Francis Deak was a visionary international lawyer of European descent who graduated with an S.J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1927. At a time when international law is as needed as it is challenged, I hope to follow in the footsteps of my distinguished Deak predecessors."
Waibel recently received a doctor of laws from the the University of Vienna. His paper argues that the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) is ineffective when creditors take countries that have defaulted on their debt to arbitration. Not only does the ICSID lack jurisdiction over sovereign debt instruments, but mere non-payment of sovereign debt generally does not violate international law, Waibel's paper finds.
The annual Francis Deak Prize is awarded to a young author for outstanding scholarship published in The American Journal of International Law. The prize was established by Philip Cohen in 1973, in memory of Francis Deak, former head of the international law program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and editor of American International Law Cases, 1783-1963, the first volume of which was published in 1971, the year before his death. The award is sponsored by Oxford University Press.