Graduate Student Makes the Most Out of Her Time at uOttawa Faculty of Law

Faculty of Law - Common Law Section
Alumni

By Common Law

Communication, Faculty of Law

Agata Zwolankiewicz
Agata Zwolankiewicz just completed her L.LM. in International Trade and Investment in July 2020. She has certainly made the most out of her short time at the school.

She wrote two excellent papers on investment law that are being published. Her paper “The principle of clean hands in international investment arbitration: what is the extent of investment protection in investor-state disputes?” was a runner-up in the Young ITA Writing Competition will be published in ITA In Review. The ITA is the Institute for Transnational Arbitration. Another paper, “Third party funding in international investment arbitration: a dire need of disclosure” will be published in Warsaw University Law Review in Poland (paper can be accessed at: http://lawreview.wpia.uw.edu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/PPUW_2_2019_Zwolankiewicz-1.pdf. Both papers were initially prepared under the supervision of Prof. Tony VanDuzer for his International Investment Law Course in the Fall 2019.

Agata completed her LL.M. research paper in July under the supervision of Prof. Patrick Dumberry. Her project is entitled "Hardship and force majeure as grounds for adaptation and renegotiation of investment contracts- what is the extent of the powers of arbitral tribunals?”.

During the stay at the University, Agata also conducted two internships. During the winter term, she was an intern in the office of the Government Representative in the Senate, the Honorable Marc Gold (more information available at: https://commonlaw.uottawa.ca/en/news/international-graduate-student-and-mcdougall-scholar-interns-senate-canada). In spring-summer term, Agata was a Hyman Soloway Fellow at Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI) in New York. She described her experience this way.

I secured the fellowship at CCSI through Summer Student Support Initiative (SSSI). It has been a great experience, I have been working on a project “Alternative Dispute Resolution and Dispute Prevention”. My tasks included legal research, attending webinars, preparing internal memoranda. The staff at CCSI has been very friendly and helpful and even though it was entirely a remote position, I felt like a part of the team”.

In addition to the fellowship, Agata was accepted into Executive Training on Investment Treaties and Arbitration for Government Officials conducted by CCSI, taking place July 13-24 2020.

Agata received the Edward Barry McDougall Memorial Scholarship for Graduate Studies in Law to study in our LLM programme. The scholarship was established in memory of Barry McDougall, BA, LLB, by his family to enable one Polish law graduate per year to travel to Canada to earn a Master of Laws degree (LLM) in Common and Civil Law at the University of Ottawa.