President Biden Appoints Di Rosa and Hodgson to ICSID Panels

The United States recently designated, in presidential-level appointments, Arnold & Porter partners Paolo Di Rosa and Mélida Hodgson to serve on the Panels of Arbitrators and Conciliators of the World Bank-affiliated International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), which is the world’s leading arbitral institution for investor-State disputes. The U.S. designations were recently published on the ICSID website.

Di Rosa has been redesignated to the ICSID Panel of Arbitrators by President Biden, having been previously designated to that panel by President Obama in 2016. Di Rosa's redesignation is unprecedented as there has been no prior instance in which two different U.S. presidents have appointed the same person to the ICSID Panel of Arbitrators. Hodgson was designated by President Biden to the ICSID Panel of Conciliators. She also recently assumed the Presidency of the American Society of International Law. Both Di Rosa and Hodgson will serve the standard six-year term on the ICSID panels.

The recent designations form part of a long Arnold & Porter tradition of service on ICSID panels, which began as early as 1968, when founding partner Thurman Arnold was included by President Lyndon B. Johnson in the United States’ very first slate of designees to the ICSID Panel of Arbitrators. Additionally, Arnold & Porter partner Whitney Debevoise was on the ICSID Panel of Arbitrators and the ICSID Panel of Conciliators from 2010 to 2020.

The firm's International Arbitration practice has secured some of the largest damages awards in ICSID history and has achieved a larger number of positive outcomes than any other firm globally in the defense of sovereign States in investment arbitrations.