Speaker details

Biography

Catherine Amirfar is a litigation partner in the International Dispute Resolution Group and Co-Chair of the firm’s Public International Law Group. Her practice focuses on international commercial and treaty arbitration, international and complex commercial litigation and public international law. She is a member of the firm’s Management Committee. Prior to rejoining Debevoise in 2016, Ms. Amirfar spent two years as the Counselor on International Law to the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State. During her tenure as Counselor, Ms. Amirfar advised the State Department on its most significant litigation matters involving international law and foreign relations and liaised with senior officials of the Departments of Justice and Defense, the National Security Council and the Office of White House Counsel. She represented the United States before international bodies and broadly advised the State Department on international legal issues arising in the areas of human rights, armed conflict, sovereign and diplomatic immunity, international arbitration and claims settlement and the intersection of U.S. and international law. Ms. Amirfar received the State Department’s Superior Honor Award in recognition of her contributions to the Department. She is among the youngest advocates ever to argue before the International Court of Justice and is ranked among the top international legal practitioners in the world by Chambers Global (2019). She has written extensively on international arbitration, the relationship between international law and U.S. domestic law, international human rights and humanitarian law, investor-state disputes, and the law of consular and diplomatic immunities. She is a frequent lecturer on international law and has guest lectured at Yale Law School and NYU Law School, among others. Ms. Amirfar has served as Vice President of the American Society of International Law (ASIL), for which she has been co-hosting a podcast called “International News Behind the Headlines”, and currently is a member of the American Law Institute, the Council on Foreign Relations, the State Department’s Advisory Council on International Law, and the Court of Arbitration of the Singapore International Arbitration Centre. She also serves as Co-Chair of the ICCA-ASIL Task Force on Damages in International Arbitration.