Each year, Lewis & Clark Law faculty select winners of the Davis Wright Tremaine International Writing Award, awarded for original and substantial research papers written in the past year on any topic in private or public international law or comparing the laws of nations.
Madeline Masaryk ’26 earned first prize, including a $2,500 stipend, for her paper, Reimagined Compensation Calculations for Public Purpose Expropriation. Masaryk’s paper digs into the fair market value (FMV) compensation calculation for a host States expropriation of foreign investors property and the sovereign right of States to regulate in the public interest. The rigid calculation of fair market value often fails to account for the complex realities underlying expropriation undertaken for a public purpose, particularly when there is asymmetry in bargaining power between a host State and the foreign investor.
Masaryk evaluates strategies that some countries have used to counter this imbalance, such as South Africa’s “just and equitable” standard. The “just and equitable” standard allows for a more holistic review to determine compensation for expropriation, working to balance sovereign interests alongside investor rights. Masaryk then applies this model to a recent case, Lupaka Gold Corp. v. Republic of Peru, in which Peru was found to have expropriated a Canadian mining company’s assets. She demonstrates how under adjusted treaty language that mirrors the “just and equitable” standard, Peru might have been able to lower the amount paid. Finally, Masaryk concludes by arguing that by renegotiating treaties to incorporate a “just and equitable” standard, international tribunals may achieve more equitable outcomes while still preserving investor protections. Professor George Foster supervised this work.
Abigail Harper ’26 received second place and a $1,000 award for her paper Getting the Green Light: A Comparative Evolution of Standing in International Environmental Human Rights Litigation. Her paper explores the challenge litigants often face before the various international tribunals in establishing standing (interchangeably referred to as locus standi) for environmental human rights claims. While standing traditionally requires an identifiable “victim,” or an individualized, concrete harm, environmental degradation and damage often reach beyond these boundaries, making it even more difficult for advocates to access the judicial review, redress, and enforcement mechanisms of international commissions and courts in this context. Harper analyzes how the formal recognition of environmental human rights, like the right to a healthy environment, have encouraged (or forced) these international tribunals to evolve their standing principles in order to judicially and practically effectuate these rights–especially in the context of climate change. In turn, this evolution has and can continue to shape human rights litigation as a more proactive method of environmental protection.
Harper extensively compares the various international courts and commissions’ approaches to standing in myriad ways, drawing key lessons for environmental advocates operating within each of these human rights arenas. In sum, Harper argues that the formal recognition of an independent right to a healthy environment–due to its nature and scope–generates a universal reconceptualization of standing to practically effectuate the right, and thus incorporates widespread, disparate, or purely eco-centric harms squarely and reliably within the human rights litigation framework. Professor Chris Wold served as faculty adviser for Harper’s work.
