Martinez-Fraga Presents on Arbitrator Immunity for HIALSA

Miami Partner Pedro J. Martinez-Fraga, a co-leader of BCLP’s International Arbitration Practice, will present Nov. 17 on the “pernicious” influence of judicial immunity on arbitrator immunity. This webinar is hosted by the Harvard International Arbitration Law Students Association (HIALSA).

The English common law’s absolute judicial immunity, which arbitrators inherited, is based on the semi-religious principle of monarchical infallibility. The U.S. common law attitudes on judicial immunity grew from this belief. Martinez-Fraga will discuss the doctrinal and legal foundations of this fallacy and suggest a contract model that instead should govern arbitrator liability.

Martinez-Fraga is a leading practitioner in the field of international litigation and transnational arbitration, including complex jurisdictional disputes concerning common law and civil law issues. He is a World Bank (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development) arbitrator and serves on the Advisory Council to the Restatement (Third) of International Commercial Arbitration of the American Law Institute. 

On Dec. 16, 2015, President Barack Obama appointed Martinez-Fraga as one of four U.S. delegate members to the Panel of Conciliators of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (World Bank), effective Feb. 23, 2016. He is the first Hispanic to have been so appointed in the history of the Washington Convention of 1965. He has written more than 50 peer-reviewed or academically reviewed  articles, six books on private and public procedural international law and is the co-editor and a contributing author of a seventh book on international arbitration.