Professor Dan Sarooshi KC
Barrister, Essex Court Chambers, London; Professor of Public International Law, University of Oxford
Professor Dan Sarooshi KC is a specialist advocate and counsel in public international law (including particular expertise in State and diplomatic immunity cases in domestic courts), investment treaty arbitration, and constitutional and public law. He is a veteran of many cases in international courts (International Court of Justice (see, e.g., UN Web TV here at 1:10), European Court of Human Rights, WTO, and UN Tribunals); investment arbitrations (ICSID, ICSID AF, ECT, PCA, NAFTA, ICC, UNCITRAL, and LCIA); and the highest domestic courts in the UK (Supreme Court/Court of Appeal in eight key cases), Hong Kong (HK Court of Final Appeal), the Supreme Court of the Bahamas, and the British Virgin Islands. In the area of international law alone, he has in the past three years argued 20 cases as advocate and counsel for States, international organisations, and corporations.
His clients include 22 States (e.g. UK and USA), 19 international organizations, and corporations (e.g. BAT, Exxon Mobil, Hitachi, Roche, and Tesco). Before taking Silk, he was a member of both the UK Attorney General (AG) Panel of Counsel for Public International Law cases and the AG Panel of Counsel for Constitutional and Commercial Law cases.
Dan chairs the panel on economic sanctions at the LCIL 2022, and has broad experience relating to sanctions in international and the English courts as well as advising clients on a broad range of sanctions matters under United Nations, European Union, and UK sanctions regimes imposed against States including Colombia, Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Sudan.
In parallel with his litigation and advisory services, Dan is Professor of Public International Law at the University of Oxford (since 2006) and a Senior Research Fellow at The Queen’s College Oxford. He has published four books: International Organizations and Their Exercise of Sovereign Powers (OUP) (2005), The United Nations and the Development of Collective Security (OUP) (1999), Responsibility and Remedies for the Actions of International Organizations (Hague Academy/Brill, 2014), and Issues of State Responsibility before International Judicial Institutions (2004). These books were awarded the American Society of International Law Prize twice (2001 and 2006), 1999 Swiss Guggenheim Prize, and 2006 US Myres McDougal Prize. He is joint General Editor and co-author with former ICJ Judge Sir Christopher Greenwood of Oppenheim’s International Law (forthcoming: 10th ed., OUP); served previously as joint General Editor of the Oxford University Press series Oxford Monographs in International Law; and has authored over 50 articles/chapters, including the 125 pp. co-authored chapter with Judge Dame Rosalyn Higgins (former ICJ President) entitled “Institutional Modes of Conflict Management”. He delivered the Hague Academy of International Law (HAIL) lectures on “Immunities of States and International Organizations in National Courts” in 2018, being prepared for publication in HAIL’s Recueil des cours. He served previously as Director of HAIL’s Centre of Research (English & French) in 2011, and as Director of Studies, HAIL, 2005.