A/Prof Diego Mejía-Lemos LLM PhD, Distinguished Research Associate Professor within the framework of Xi’an Jiaotong University’s ‘Young Talent Support Plan’, presented his work at two events held on Wednesday, 8 September 2021, during the opening of this year’s Annual Conference of the European Society of International Law (ESIL), held in Stockholm, Sweden. A/Prof Mejía-Lemos was selected to present his work following a highly competitive selection process. Remarkably, he was invited to present his work by two ESIL Interest Groups (IG), unlike most scholars, who are normally able to present their work at only one IG event.

First, he spoke at a panel of the day-long ESIL International Economic Law IG’s Workshop on ‘International Economic Law ‘In the Making’: New Actors and Policies’. He participated at one of the early panels, alongside senior scholars and practitioners such as A/Prof Caroline E. Foster (University of Auckland) and Simon Batifort (managing partner at Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP’s Brussels office). His presentation, entitled ‘Particularism and Universalism in ISDS: Limitations and Prospects of Recent Developments in the Methodology of Systemic Integration in Arbitral Practice’, was based on a survey of arbitral practice discussed in a chapter he was commissioned to contribute to Chaisse J., Choukroune L., Jusoh S. (eds),Handbook of International Investment Law and Policy. Springer, 2021 (pp 1603-1652). The chapter, entitled ‘General International Law and International Investment Law: A Systematic Analysis of Interactions in Arbitral Practice’, has been made available since 17 August 2021, at theHandbook’s website (https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3615-7_29).

Secondly, he also spoke at a roundtable held by the ESIL International Legal Theory IG, entitled ‘Theories and Methodologies in the Contemporary Study of International Lawmaking’. His presentation, entitled ‘The ‘Two-Element’ Approach to Customary International Law as Methodological Framework of International Lawmaking Theories’, was discussed alongside the work of well-established scholars such as Prof Anne van Aaken (Alexander von Humboldt Professor, Chair for Law and Economics, Legal Theory, Public International Law and European Law and Director of the Institute of Law and Economics, Universität Hamburg) and Prof Tomer Broude (Bessie & Michael Greenblatt, Q.C., Chair in Public and International Law, Hebrew University of Jerusalem), with whom he engaged in a lively discussion chaired by Dr Ekaterina Yahyaoui (Vice-Dean for Research, National University of Ireland, Galway).