June 09, 2020

2020 DWT International Law Writing Awards Recipients Announced

The 2020 Davis Wright Tremaine (DWT) International Law Writing Awards winners are Adriana Gomez and Brittaney Bones. Established through the generosity of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, the Lewis & Clark Law School award program provides a $2,500 stipend for the best research paper written in the past year by a Lewis & Clark JD student on any topic in international or comparative law, and a $1,000 stipend for the second best paper.

The 2020 Davis Wright Tremaine (DWT) International Law Writing Awards winners are Adriana Gomez and Brittaney Bones. Established through the generosity of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, the Lewis & Clark Law School award program provides a $2,500 stipend for the best research paper written in the past year by a Lewis & Clark JD student on any topic in international or comparative law, and a $1,000 stipend for the second best paper.

Adriana Gomez received first place for her paper, The Implementation of Gender Inclusivity Standards in the 2019 Dutch Model Bilateral Investment Treaty. In the paper, she examines the impact of decades of global momentum towards widespread implementation of mandatory gender diversity provisions in international trade and investment instruments, culminating in the creation and adoption of the 2019 Dutch Model Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT). The treaty takes unprecedented measures to protect female-driven investments as well as mandate the selection of women arbitrators on dispute resolution panels. Adriana argues that, despite the considerable improvements made upon pre-existing gender diversity provisions in international agreements, the 2019 Dutch Model BIT fails to develop mechanisms for identifying the social and economic barriers women face that can provide unparalleled challenges to establishing investments abroad, and offers recommendations for future iterations of the treaty.

Brittaney Bones received second place for her paper, Potential Solutions to Concerns over the Treatment of U.S. Investment in China: The Need for a U.S.-China Bilateral Investment Treaty. Through offering a critique of China’s new Foreign Investment Law, Brittaney identifies shortcomings and ambiguity in the law’s provisions that operate to undermine rights afforded to foreign investors in mainland China. Brittaney argues the necessary solution for investor concerns is a U.S. China Bilateral Investment Treaty containing provisions specifically tailored to address common issues faced by U.S. investors, including ineffective intellectual property protections and a lack of fair and equitable treatment.