Davis Wright Tremaine Award Winners

The International Law Committee has just announced the winners of the 2015 Davis Wright Tremaine International Law Writing Awards. Established through the generosity of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, the award program provides a $2,000 stipend for the best student research paper written in the past year on any topic in private or public international law, with a $500 stipend for the second best paper.

This year’s winners are:

First Place:  Joseph Callahan, Corporal Punishment: A Socially Acceptable Human Rights Violation?

Second Place: Chester Hill, No Time Like the Present: Why ICSID Should Adopt an Appellate System and How It Could Operate

Joe’s paper discusses the controversy surrounding corporal punishment in the United States in the face of the absolute condemnation of all corporal punishment in international human rights law and its contra indications in empirical studies; and argues for something closer to the Canadian approach in defining and limiting the present reasonableness standard.    

Chester’s paper argues for the introduction of a uniform appeals’ structure to be introduced into cases brought under the International Convention for the Settlement of Investment Disputes.

Professor John P. Grant, a member of the International Law Committee and of this year’s review committee, commended both papers and their authors. “When Davis Wright Tremaine instituted the awards, the aim was to improve the quantity and quality of student writing on international law topics” he said. “Year on year, the papers submitted seem to improve and this year’s top entries are remarkable for their legal analysis and the quality of their writing. We have in Joe and Chester two worthy winners in a great competition.”