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Matthew Parish (born in Leeds in 1975) is a British international lawyer and international relations expert, based in Switzerland.

Biography

Parish was born in Leeds, in West Yorkshire, the son of a biochemist and of a social worker, both Oxford graduates.

Studies

Parish attended Harrogate Grammar School before he moved to Cambridge University where he is a graduate of Christ's College, Cambridge in 1996, and of the University of Chicago Law School, where he obtained a master of laws in 2004 and a doctorate in law in 2007. He is an English barrister since 2000(non-practising), a member of the Swiss bar and a New York attorney since 2005.

He is the Chair of the International Law Association's New York Committee on the Accountability of International Organizations. He is an outspoken advocate of UN accountability and reform.

Career and publications

Before 2005 Parish worked in the legal department of the World Bank.

Between 2005 and 2007 Parish worked as head of legal department for the Brcko Final Award Office of the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina (OHR). Shortly after leaving Bosnia in 2007, Parish wrote "The Demise of the Dayton Protectorate", which was later used to argue for closure of the OHR.

He then moved to Geneva, where he worked in different law firms and held positions as visiting lecturer and Honorary Professor in various universities. Parish still writes occasional columns for the Sarajevo-based newspaper Oslobodjenje and for the regional online outlet Balkan Insight.

Parish's book on reconstruction in post-war Brcko, "A Free City in the Balkans" (2009), has attracted domestic and international attention. The book has been criticized for being too sceptical of the international community's statebuilding efforts in the country.

In 2010 Parish wrote 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 Mirages of International Justice (2011) 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, Parish is a defender of controversial investment treaty arbitration, a system of international law that allows investors to sue states.

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

Parish has given evidence to both the European Parliament and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs of the US Congress in 2016 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.

Parish has published a series of articles expressing sympathy for the 2017 Catalan independence movement and spent several months mandated to study the independence process in Catalonia.

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

Private practice

Since 2014 Parish has been the managing partner of Gentium Law Group, a small international arbitration firm headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. He is reported as having represented a number of governments, including Turkey, Tajikistan and Gulf monarchies, as well as commodities-trading companies in their litigation interests. 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 was the first firm to be nominated as a Global Arbitration Review Top 100 Law Firm worldwide within the first year of its operation. 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.

Gentium Law Group was reported as a principal supporter of the campaign for Vuk Jeremic, who scored second overall in the 2016 race, behind António Guterres.

In 2013 and 2018 Parish was 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.

Criminal charges

Parish was arrested on 29 May 2018 by order of the Geneva public prosecutor's office. He is being investigated for defamation, attempted extortion, attempted coercion, contempt of official orders and breach of professional secrecy. He was detained for two months.

He is accused of extortion, libel and breaking attorney-client privilege, according to a criminal complaint filed against him by two Russian oil traders. The two men, Murat Seitnepesov and Konstantin Ryndin, said in the May 8 complaint that Parish went public with false allegations to blackmail them into paying a grossly inflated legal bill. To back up the extortion allegation, Seitnepesov and Ryndin cite an email from Parish in which he writes that upon payment, “I will withdraw all my various complaints to different authorities, and I will use my reasonable endeavours to ensure that those complaints are not thereafter pursued.”

Swiss newspaper Le Temps reported in September 2016 that Parish and two unnamed lawyers in Geneva are being investigated on suspicion of forgery, along with Parish’s client Sheikh Ahmed Al-Sabah – a former oil minister and nephew of the Emir of Kuwait who sits on the International Olympic Committee and the executive council of football’s governing body, FIFA. The lawyers are accused of participating in a sham arbitration that purported to establish the authenticity of faked videos circulated by the sheikh that supposedly implicated two prominent Kuwaitis in corruption, money laundering and a plot to overthrow the 87-year old Emir. The sham award was allegedly submitted to the English courts for enforcement.

Works

Books
  • A Free City in the Balkans: Reconstructing a Divided Society in Bosnia I.B.Tauris, London (October 2009) Discusses the work of a public international law arbitration tribunal: the Arbitral Tribunal for the Dispute over the Inter-Entity Boundary in the Brcko 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) Compares 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) Analyses 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 ????? ?????? ?????? ????? ????????? (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. Profils Arbitration
  2. ^ Biography, MattewParish.com
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Arb was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding December 2007. Wmin.ac.uk. Retrieved on 2012-06-14.
  5. RS Government Report on the Situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. (PDF) . Retrieved on 2012-06-14.
  6. Speech by Milorad Dodik to the RS National Assembly, 13 October 2008
  7. Matthew Parish, "A Free City in the Balkans: Reconstructing a Divided Society in Bosnia" (London: I.B.Tauris 2009)
  8. Muharem Bazdulj, Brcko kao Gdanjsk ili Trst, Oslobodjenje, 20 March 2010
  9. Kenneth Morrison, Balkan Insight 15 June 2010 Archived 12 July 2012 at archive.today. Old.balkaninsight.com. Retrieved on 2012-06-14.
  10. Jelena Subotic, Nationalities Papers, 38(3):440 (May 2010)
  11. Jasmin Mujanovic, "An Open Letter to Matthew Parish: Colonialist Clairvoyant?", Politics Re-Spun. Politicsrespun.org. Retrieved on 2012-06-14.
  12. Balkan Insight, 28 July 2010 Archived 10 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine. Old.balkaninsight.com. Retrieved on 2012-06-14.
  13. Matthew Parish, "Mirages of International Justice: The Elusive Pursuit of a Transnational Legal Order" (London: Edward Elgar 2011)
  14. "List of 2013 Young Global Leaders Honourees" (PDF). 3.weforum.org. Retrieved 2017-02-23.
  15. "Bilan | La référence suisse de l'économie, finance, immobilier, entreprises". Bilan.ch. Retrieved 2017-02-23.
  16. "Neither Justice Nor Reconciliation". Counterpunch.org. 2013-04-17. Retrieved 2017-02-23.
  17. Joint Subcommittee Hearing: Establishing Accountability at the World Intellectual Property Organization: Illicit Technology Transfers, Whistleblowing, and Reform, Foreign Affairs, 24 February 2016
  18. "Reflection on the Catalan conundrum". 2017-10-09.
  19. "Sequestering Catalonia". 2017-10-27.
  20. "Catalan Independence". 2017-10-29.
  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. Harris, Joanne (2015-01-06). "Another arbitration boutique is born as HFW Geneva partner quits with team". thelawyer.
  25. "GAR 100 - 9th Edition".
  26. "GAR Arbitration Surveys". Globalarbitrationreview.com. Retrieved 2017-02-23.
  27. "Gentium Law founder supports UN leadership bid".
  28. "The Legal 500".
  29. https://globalarbitrationreview.com/article/1170310/english-lawyer-arrested-in-geneva-after-blackmail-complaint
  30. Miller, Hugo; Hoffman, Andy (2018-06-06). "Telling Tale About Russian Client Lands Swiss Lawyer in Jail". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2018-06-08.
  31. Besson, Sylvain (31 May 2018). "Un avocat anglais arrêté à Genève pour chantage". Le Temps (in French). Retrieved 2018-06-08.
  32. https://www.letemps.ch/suisse/un-avocat-anglais-arrete-geneve-chantage
  33. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-06/telling-tales-about-russian-clients-lands-swiss-lawyer-in-jail
  34. https://www.rt.com/business/428907-swiss-lawyer-prison-russian-iran/
  35. https://globalarbitrationreview.com/article/1170310/english-lawyer-arrested-in-geneva-after-blackmail-complaint
  36. http://gentiumlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/23-9-16_Kuwaiti_sheikh_videos_lead_to_Geneva_law_firm_raids.pdf
  37. https://www.letemps.ch/suisse/geneve-trois-avocats-un-cheikh-inculpes-faux-arbitrage
  38. 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.
  39. Parish, Matthew (2011). Mirages of International Justice: The Elusive Pursuit of a Transnational Legal Order. Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd. ISBN 978-1849804080.
  40. Parish, Matthew (2016). Ethnic Civil War and the Promise of Law. Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd. ISBN 978-0857934192.
  41. 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)
  42. "Dr. Matthew Parish - Contributing Authors - About - OGEL Journal (Oil, Gas & Energy Law Intelligence) - Global Energy Law & Regulation Portal". Ogel.org. Retrieved 2017-02-23.
  44. "International Officials by Matthew Parish :: SSRN". Papers.ssrn.com. SSRN 1651519. {{cite web}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help)
  45. "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)
  47. "Blog Archive Legal Accountability of International Organizations and Their Agents". Opinio Juris. 2010-09-16. Retrieved 2017-02-23.
  49. "University of Westminster, London" (PDF). Wmin.ac.uk. 2016-12-16. Retrieved 2017-02-23.
  50. Parish, Matthew (2013-05-03). "Republika Srpska: After Independence". Balkan Insight. Retrieved 2017-02-23.
  53. "Žurnal - Jedina slobodna teritorija". Zurnal.info. Retrieved 2017-02-23.
  54. "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)
  55. "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)
  56. "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)
  57. "OGEL 3 (2012) - Browse Issues - Journal - OGEL Journal (Oil, Gas & Energy Law Intelligence) - Global Energy Law & Regulation Portal". Ogel.org. Retrieved 2017-02-23.
  58. Matthew Parish; Greta L. Ríos. "Wrongful acts of International Organizations : No effective remedy means no responsibility" (PDF). Ila-americanbranch.org. Retrieved 2017-02-23.
  59. "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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