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Matthew Parish is a lawyer and scholar of international relations, ethnic conflict and civil war, and a former UN peacekeeper. He is known for his writings about the politics of the western Balkans and his critiques of the international community's role in securing peace in the region, as well as his commentaries on the United Nations, Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

He has written and spoken on civil wars, post-conflict development, and international security policy issues across the globe. He has published over 250 articles, and his writings have been the subject of widespread commentary in the national and international press. He is also a well-known lawyer within Switzerland, his adoptive country, and the law firm he founded, the Gentium Law Group, has been named by Global Arbitration Review in consecutive years as one of the top one hundred law firms worldwide in its field.

Matthew Parish was a key supporter of and Chief International Political Advisor to Vuk Jeremić in his failed campaign to be elected UN Secretary General in 2016 .

Education and background

Parish attended Harrogate Grammar School before he moved to Cambridge University where he is a graduate of Christ's College, Cambridge, where he obtained Triple First Class Honors degree, and of the University of Chicago Law School, where he obtained his doctorate. From 2009 to 2010 he was a Fellow at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law. He is also a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and a senior non-resident fellow of the Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development. Parish is also a senior fellow of the Institute of Comparative Law. He is a member of the Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn and of the Swiss Arbitration Association. He is a visiting professor at the University of Geneva and teaches at a variety of universities across Europe. Parish formerly worked as an intern for Advocate General Francis Jacobs at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. He is the Chair of the International Law Association's New York Committee on the Accountability of International Organizations. He is originally from Yorkshire.

Career

Parish is an international lawyer, the Managing Partner of Gentium Law Group, an international arbitration practice with offices in Ankara, Fribourg, Geneva, Istanbul, London and Moscow. He was formerly Chief Legal Adviser to the International Supervisor of Brčko District, a region of northern Bosnia and Herzegovina run as a protectorate by the US Government since 1997. He previously worked in the legal department of the World Bank. He is an English barrister, a member of the Swiss bar and a New York attorney, and teaches at the University of Geneva. He is also an Honorary Professor at the University of Leicester in comparative civil law and common law systems of litigation. Parish was elected as a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum in 2013 and has also been named as one of the 300 most influential people in Switzerland by Bilan Magazine.

Parish is reported as having represented a number of governments, including Turkey and Tajikistan. He is believed to be active in representing commodities trading companies and also Gulf monarchies in their litigation interests. He is described in one legal journal as "the quintessential political lawyer", and he is one of the most widely cited lawyers in the international media and academic journals. In Geneva he is known for having taken on a series of high-profile cases relating to UN and public corruption and misconduct, and is an outspoken advocate of UN accountability and reform.

Writings on Balkan politics

Shortly after leaving Bosnia in 2007, Parish wrote "The Demise of the Dayton Protectorate", which became front page news in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The piece predicted that the Office of the High Representative (OHR), the country's post-war governor, would soon collapse. This article subsequently became cited in the state-building literature, and was said to be a catalyst for disintegration of the country's international governing structure. Republika Srpska, the Serb-dominated half of the country, relied upon the article to argue for closure of OHR.

Parish has written a commentary on the 22 July 2010 decision of the International Court of Justice declaring Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence to be lawful. He expresses the view that while Kosovo's independence was inevitable, judicial determination of the issue was unsatisfactory as a matter of policy.

Parish's book on reconstruction in post-war Bosnia, "A Free City in the Balkans", has attracted domestic and international attention. The book has been described as "telling the story of the successes wrought by innovative policy and the dangers of premature disengagement" and a "damning critique of the role and the actions of the OHR and the state-building attempts by the international community can make for uncomfortable reading". The book has been criticized for being too sceptical of the international community's statebuilding efforts in the country.

Parish purports to provide a critique of the international community's activities in the Balkans Parish writes occasional columns for the Sarajevo-based newspaper Oslobodjenje and for Balkan Insight.

Parish spoke to the UN General Assembly in April 2013 in a meeting organized by its then President Vuk Jeremic. He chaired a debate about the effectiveness of international criminal justice, and how it might be made more efficient and improved.

Constructivism in international relations

Parish's book "Mirages of International Justice", advances a constructivist account of international law. He thinks sovereign states would never agree to create genuinely impartial and independent international courts that would enforce international law against themselves. Thus international courts are deliberately made powerless, and they occupy precarious roles in the balance of power in which they are liable to make decisions in accordance with Great Power interests. International tribunals proliferate not because states want to see international justice done but because they want to associate themselves with the ideals captured in discourse about international law without making any real commitments. The world of international relations remains an anarchy, but international courts (and indeed international organizations in general) are part of an illusion that the world is ordered in accordance with moral principles. Nevertheless, he is a defender of controversial investment treaty arbitration, a system of international law that allows investors to sue states.

Parish is a scholar of the jurisprudence of both the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and international criminal law in general.

Parish has given evidence to both the European Parliament and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs of the US Congress on issues relating to international organizations and international law. He is an advocate of free trade and open-market economics, and says that international investment is a consequence of free trade.

Catalonia

Parish has published a series of articles expressing sympathy for the 2017 Catalan independence movement.

Law Firm

Gentium Law Group is an international arbitration law firm headquartered in Fribourg, Switzerland. Gentium Law is the creature of its Managing Partner, Matthew Parish who has been named as one of the three hundred most influential people in Switzerland. Parish has also been named as Dispute Resolution Lawyer of the Year in Switzerland, 2018.

Gentium Law Group was one of the first in a new breed of “boutique” arbitration law firms that involves teams of senior arbitration lawyers splitting away from large established law firms and forming their own smaller practices under new brands. Although the departure of Holman Fenwick’s team was known to be extraordinarily acrimonious, Gentium Law Group seems to have thrived while the Geneva office of the law firm from which it departed fared less well.

Gentium Law Group is the first known international law firm to establish a presence in Iraqi Kurdistan.

In 2016, a leading arbitration expert, Tony Cole, joined Gentium Law Group to combine work as an arbitrator with his academic pursuits at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom.

Gentium Law Group was the first ever firm to be nominated as a Global Arbitration Review Top 100 Law Firm worldwide within the first year of its operation.

Gentium Law Group was reported as a principal supporter of the campaign for Vuk Jeremić, the former Serbian Foreign Minister and one of the youngest-ever candidates to stand as Secretary General of the United Nations, and succeeded in making him second overall in the 2016 race, coming just behind António Guterres, the new Secretary General.

Since the election of first-placed rival António Guterres, Gentium Law Group has emerged as a key supporter of the 2016 Secretary General-elect.

Published works and other media

Books
  • A Free City in the Balkans: Reconstructing a Divided Society in Bosnia I.B.Tauris, London (October 2009) First book, discussing the work of a public international law arbitration tribunal: the Arbitral Tribunal for the Dispute over the Inter-Entity Boundary in the Brčko Area, of which the author was one of the principal officers.
  • Mirages of International Justice: The Elusive Pursuit of a Transnational Legal Order Edward Elgar, London (May 2011) Second book, comparing structural failures in different international courts and tribunals. Applies the insights of realism and constructivism in international relations theory to international law. Compares the ECHR, investment tribunals, the ICJ, international criminal courts, the WTO and the EU courts.
  • Ethnic Civil War and the Promise of Law Edward Elgar, London (forthcoming late 2013) Third book, analysing the different state-building strategies used by the international community in ethnic civil wars. One of the first comparative studies in the field, contrasting state-building projects in the Balkans, the Middle East, Latin America and East Asia. This book presents a sceptical hypothesis, concerned that the short electoral cycles to which intervening governments work hinders the long-term commitment necessary to achieve sustainable results.
Legal and academic papers and journal articles
  • Film Finance: The Hidden Wager (2002) 118 L.Q.R.187 Considers whether there is an insurable interest in film finance insurance policies. Published in the Law Quarterly Review, England’s foremost academic legal journal.
  • State aid and third parties: a logical paradox (2002) 27 E.L.Rev. 628 Addresses the nature of remedies in EC competition law cases in which government financial assistance to private sector companies has been held to be unlawful. Published in the European Law Review, the premier English language journal on EC law.
  • On the Private Investor Principle (2003) 28 E.L.Rev. 70 Critique of a central principle of EC competition law as conceptually incoherent. At the request of Philippe Herzog MEP.
  • Why are developing world private finance contracts so difficult to get right? Oil, Gas and Energy Law Intelligence, Vol. 5(2) April 2007 Discusses microeconomic obstacles to successful execution of project finance contracts for the private operation of infrastructure services in the developing world, and the high incidence of arbitration and renegotiation associated with them. Examines information and cooperation problems, and analyses failures to plan adequately for dispute resolution scenarios.
  • On Necessity J. World Inv’t & Trade 11(2): 1 (2010) Critique of the public international law “emergency defences” in the context of the global economic crisis, as elucidated through ICJ and investment tribunal case law, and the ILC draft articles on state responsibility.
  • The Proper Law of an Arbitration Agreement Arbitration, the Journal of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators 76(4): 661 (2010) Argues that conventional doctrines of dépeçage in the law of international arbitration are confused. The “proper law of an arbitration agreement” by which an arbitration clause’s validity is judged should generally follow the lex fori, irrespective of the lex causae; but capacity to arbitrate should be assessed by the lex domicilii, even for public entities.
  • Awarding Moral Damages to Respondent States in Investment Arbitration Berkeley Journal of International Law 29(1): 101 (2010) Investigates the incidence of moral damages claims in investment treaty arbitration. Surveys cases where claimants have been awarded moral damages, and considers the criteria and quantum. Also suggests respondent states may be entitled to bring counterclaims for moral damages where claimants proceed vexatiously in bringing investment treaty claims.
  • Investment Treaty Law and International Law Am.Rev.Int’l.Arb. 23(1):137 (2012) Considers the occasions on which arbitration tribunal established under investment treaties have had cause to consider the content of other areas of law, and examines the different methods they have used for resolving areas of overlap and conflict. Considers in particular the relationship between investment treaty law and human rights law, EU law and international arbitration law. Winner, International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution, Best Short Article of 2012 Also published in Investment Treaty Arbitration and International Law (T. Weiler, ed., Juris 2014)
  • An Introduction to the Energy Charter Treaty Am.Rev.Int’l.Arb. 20: 191 (2010) Provides an overview of the jurisdictional requirements for US investors to acquire Energy Charter Treaty protections when investing in the energy sector in Eastern Europe and the CIS.
  • The public international law of bank bail-outs Transnational Dispute Management, Vol. 7(1) April 2010 Discusses the principles of international investment law applicable to the bank bail-outs that occurred globally in 2008/2009, and asks whether claims may be raised before investment tribunals by investors aggrieved by the terms of national bail-out programmes.
  • International Officials Austrian Rev.Int’l.Eur.L. Vol. 13: 79 (2008) Discusses the powers in public international law of officials charged with UN-mandated and other international territorial administrations in post-conflict societies. Argues that those powers should be strictly delimited and subject to international legal review by an impartial international judicial body.
  • An Essay on the Accountability of International Organizations Int’l.Org.L.Rev. 7(2): 277 (2010) Argues for improved legal accountability of international organizations, abandonment of traditional doctrines of functional immunity from domestic suit, and application of human rights treaties to the acts of IOs. First presented as part of a conference panel on accountability of international organisations, of which the author was the Chair. International Law Association Conference: Challenges to Transnational Governance, Fordham Law School, NYC, 22–23 October 2009.
  • The Economic Logic of Formality in Property Law European Law & Economics Association (ELEA) 2009 Annual Conference (September 2009) Discusses the economic rationale of the common law rule that passage of title to personalty is a question of parties’ intention. Compares this principle unfavourably with a Roman-Germanic doctrine of traditio.
  • The Demise of the Dayton Protectorate Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, December 2007 Discusses the rise and fall of the international legal regime in post-war Bosnia, under which a UN official called the “High Representative” ran Bosnia as an internationally administered governorate for over ten years.
  • Republika Srpska: After Independence Argues that the fracture of post-war Bosnia into two or more mini-states is inevitable. The international community’s best course is not to make futile attempts to resist it, but rather delay the process. When the inevitable finally happens, the international community should accept the country’s partition and ameliorate the worst consequences.
  • Paradigms of State-Building: Comparing Bosnia and Kosovo Journal of Eurasian Law 3(3) (2010) Critiques the legal structure of international territorial administration in post-war Bosnia and Kosovo. Draws parallels between the legal structure of the state-building missions in each territory, yet observes that the challenges facing intervention missions in each territory were profoundly different, and seeks to draw lessons from the errors made by the international community in each jurisdiction.
  • Arbitration in the Western Balkans: The Emerging Commercial Landscape Pravni Život (Serbian academic legal journal), December 2010 Also presented at the conference of the Kopaonik School of Natural Law, 14 December 2010
  • The political logic of Balkanisation Proceedings of the Geneva Security Forum (2011) Considers the success and failures of secessionist movements around the world, the international law governing state secession, and the political conditions which make secession possible, in the context of state-building missions that seek to hold countries together in the aftermath of civil war.
  • International courts and the European Legal Order European Journal of International Law, Vol. 23(1) (2012) Considers the possibility for conflict between different areas of international law, in particular between EU law and other areas of international law, and reviews the opinion of the European Court of Justice declaring the European Community and Patents Court to be inconsistent with EU law.
  • International sanctions and how to evade them Oil Gas & Energy Law 10th Edition Special Issue, March 2012 Analyzes the legal effects of differing regimes of international sanctions, and the ease of evading those sanctions. Includes travel bans, banking bans and export embargoes, principally considered in the context of the 2012 Iran crisis.
  • Wrongful acts of international organizations: no remedy means no responsibility International Law Association Committee Report, 18 December 2012 Considers the obligations under international law of international organizations, and the paucity of remedies available to those adversely affected by their decisions. The article also serves as an introduction to the committee's work.
  • Deregulating legal fees Legal Studies, September 2012 (forthcoming) Argues that regulators’ schemes for controlling freedom of contract between lawyers and their clients for their fee structures are self-defeating. In particular the prohibition on contingency fees has no sound policy ground save restricting access to justice. Fee regulation is another sort of barrier to entry regulation and promotes cartel practices amongst legal professionals.
  • Judicial Politics and the Balkan Wars Foreign Legal Life, Volume 2(2013) A critical assessment of the decision of the Appellate Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia to overturn the first instance decision convicting the Croatian General Ante Gotovina of war crimes in the course of Operation Storm, expelling Serbs from Krajina, in August 1995.
  • International law and Great Power Politics In David Feldman, ed., Law in Politics, Politics in Law (Oxford: Hart), 2013 Considers the relationship between the way international law is developed and adjudicated by international courts, and the relative political strength of the sovereign litigants that international law concerns. Advances the author's pessimistic constructivism theory of international law.
  • International Law and International Organizations: the Legacy of the Twentieth Century Право Журнал высшей школы экономики (2014), Vol. 2: 124 Explores the rise of international organisations in the political history of the twentieth century, the consequent growth of international law, and the effects of this growth upon international relations, from a constructivist perspective.

References

  1. "GAR Arbitration Surveys". Globalarbitrationreview.com. Retrieved 2017-02-23.
  2. "List of 2013 Young Global Leaders Honourees" (PDF). 3.weforum.org. Retrieved 2017-02-23.
  3. "Bilan | La référence suisse de l'économie, finance, immobilier, entreprises". Bilan.ch. Retrieved 2017-02-23.
  4. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding December 2007. Wmin.ac.uk. Retrieved on 2012-06-14.
  5. Glas Srpske 12 June 2008. Glassrpske.com. Retrieved on 2012-06-14.
  6. Nezavisne Novine 21 July 2008 Archived April 5, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
  7. Sylvie Rammell, Status 13:10 (2008),
  8. Arvanitopoulous and Tzifakis, Eur. View 7:15 (2008)
  9. Gordon Bardos, National Interest, Balkanizing Barack, 21 January 2009. Nationalinterest.org (2009-01-21). Retrieved on 2012-06-14.
  10. Heinrich Böll Foundation, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Controversies of the EU Integration Process (Sarajevo 2008)
  11. RS Government Report on the Situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. (PDF) . Retrieved on 2012-06-14.
  12. Speech by Milorad Dodik to the RS National Assembly, 13 October 2008
  13. Balkan Insight, 28 July 2010 Archived 10 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine. Old.balkaninsight.com. Retrieved on 2012-06-14.
  14. Matthew Parish, "A Free City in the Balkans: Reconstructing a Divided Society in Bosnia" (London: I.B.Tauris 2009)
  15. Muharem Bazdulj, Brcko kao Gdanjsk ili Trst, Oslobodjenje, 20 March 2010
  16. Kenneth Morrison, Balkan Insight 15 June 2010 Archived 12 July 2012 at archive.today. Old.balkaninsight.com. Retrieved on 2012-06-14.
  17. Jelena Subotic, Nationalities Papers, 38(3):440 (May 2010)
  18. Jasmin Mujanovic, "An Open Letter to Matthew Parish: Colonialist Clairvoyant?", Politics Re-Spun. Politicsrespun.org. Retrieved on 2012-06-14.
  19. "Neither Justice Nor Reconciliation". Counterpunch.org. 2013-04-17. Retrieved 2017-02-23.
  20. Matthew Parish, "Mirages of International Justice: The Elusive Pursuit of a Transnational Legal Order" (London: Edward Elgar 2011)
  21. "Robust International Criminal Justice System Gives 'Much-Needed Voice to Victims' of Serious Crimes, Secretary-General Tells General Assembly | Meetings Coverage and Press Releases". Un.org. 2013-04-10. Retrieved 2017-02-23.
  22. "International criminal law - justice or mirage?". Transconflict.com. 2013-05-02. Retrieved 2017-02-23.
  23. "International Justice: Progress or Mirage? – by Matthew Parish | Edward Elgar Publishing BLOG". Elgarblog.com. 2012-08-10. Retrieved 2017-02-23.
  24. Joint Subcommittee Hearing: Establishing Accountability at the World Intellectual Property Organization: Illicit Technology Transfers, Whistleblowing, and Reform, Foreign Affairs, 24 February 2016
  25. "Reflection on the Catalan conundrum". 2017-10-09.
  26. "Sequestering Catalonia". 2017-10-27.
  27. "Catalan Independence". 2017-10-29.
  28. "The Legal 500".
  29. Harris, Joanne (2015-01-06). "Another arbitration boutique is born as HFW Geneva partner quits with team". thelawyer.
  30. "Geneva boutique hires Australian arbitrator". globalarbitrationreview.
  31. "GAR 100 - 9th Edition".
  32. "Gentium Law founder supports UN leadership bid".
  33. "UNSG news - Gentium Law Group".
  34. Parish, Matthew (2009). A Free City in the Balkans: Reconstructing a Divided Society in Bosnia (International Library of War Studies). I B Tauris & Co Ltd. ISBN 978-1848850026.
  35. Parish, Matthew (2011). Mirages of International Justice: The Elusive Pursuit of a Transnational Legal Order. Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd. ISBN 978-1849804080.
  36. Parish, Matthew (2016). Ethnic Civil War and the Promise of Law. Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd. ISBN 978-0857934192.
  37. Matthew Parish1. "SERVICES OF GENERAL INTEREST : THE CURRENT LEGAL FRAMEWORK AND PROPOSALS FOR REVISION : Brief notes for the hearing on 11 June 2003 before the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs at the European Parliament, Brussels" (PDF). Europarl.europa.eu. Retrieved 2017-02-23.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  38. "Dr. Matthew Parish - Contributing Authors - About - OGEL Journal (Oil, Gas & Energy Law Intelligence) - Global Energy Law & Regulation Portal". Ogel.org. Retrieved 2017-02-23.
  40. "International Officials by Matthew Parish :: SSRN". Papers.ssrn.com. SSRN 1651519. {{cite web}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help)
  41. "An Essay on the Accountability of International Organizations by Matthew Parish". SSRN. SSRN 1651784. {{cite web}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help)
  43. "Blog Archive Legal Accountability of International Organizations and Their Agents". Opinio Juris. 2010-09-16. Retrieved 2017-02-23.
  45. "University of Westminster, London" (PDF). Wmin.ac.uk. 2016-12-16. Retrieved 2017-02-23.
  46. Parish, Matthew (2013-05-03). "Republika Srpska: After Independence". Balkan Insight. Retrieved 2017-02-23.
  49. "Žurnal - Jedina slobodna teritorija". Zurnal.info. Retrieved 2017-02-23.
  50. "Paradigms of State-Building: Comparing Bosnia and Kosovo by Matthew Parish :: SSRN". Papers.ssrn.com. SSRN 1680226. {{cite web}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help)
  51. "Arbitration in the Western Balkans: The Emerging Commercial Landscape by Matthew Parish :: SSRN". Papers.ssrn.com. SSRN 1685217. {{cite web}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help)
  52. "International Courts and the European Legal Order by Matthew Parish :: SSRN". Papers.ssrn.com. doi:10.2139/ssrn.1919679. SSRN 1919679. {{cite web}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help)
  53. "OGEL 3 (2012) - Browse Issues - Journal - OGEL Journal (Oil, Gas & Energy Law Intelligence) - Global Energy Law & Regulation Portal". Ogel.org. Retrieved 2017-02-23.
  54. Matthew Parish; Greta L. Ríos. "Wrongful acts of International Organizations : No effective remedy means no responsibility" (PDF). Ila-americanbranch.org. Retrieved 2017-02-23.
  55. "Law in Politics, Politics in Law(Hart Studies in Constitutional Law): David Feldman: Hart Publishing". Hartpub.co.uk. doi:10.5040/9781472561633. Retrieved 2017-02-23.

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