Hamad Bin Khalifa University’s College of Law successfully co-organized an online colloquium on December 9 and 10 titled International Investment Law & New Technologies. The college’s partners in the initiative were the Tilburg Law School in the Netherlands and the Athens Public International Law Center (Athens PIL) of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens School of Law. 

New technologies are reshaping the foundation of the international economic order, and the protection of investments under International Investment Agreements, posing new challenges to investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). The colloquium highlighted such challenges and examined the need to revisit the role of International Investment Law in the age of digital capitalism and digital transactions. The discussions were organized in five panels: International Investment Law in the Digital Economy: Conceptual Issues; Digital Assets and Digital Services in International Investment Law; Data Governance, Telecommunications and Foreign Investment in the Digital Economy; Algorithms and International Investment Arbitration; and Cybersecurity, Cybersovereignty and International Investment Law.

The colloquium was convened by Professor Panos Delimatsis (Tilburg Law School), Professor Georgios Dimitropoulos (College of Law), and Professor Anastasios Gourgourinis (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, School of Law; Athens PIL), and is part of an ongoing conference and research collaboration of the three institutions.  

On the occasion of the colloquium, Professor Dimitropoulos said: “I am delighted about the collaboration of our three institutions and the organization of colloquia at the forefront of new developments in international economic law. We look forward to welcoming the third edition of the colloquium in Doha in the next couple of months.”

College of Law Dean Susan Karamanian said: “The colloquium, the second in as many years among our three partner schools, builds on the College of Law’s expertise in two fields, international investment law, and technology law. These subjects are important to Qatar as foreign investment into the country increasingly has digital dimensions.”