Stockholm university

Crina Mihaela Baltag

About me

 

    Dr Crina Baltag, FCIArb, Docent (Reader) in International Arbitration and the Academic Director of the LL.M. in International Commercial Arbitration Law at Stockholm University. Crina also practices as arbitrator and she is a qualified attorney-at-law, member of the Romanian and Bucharest Bar, with extensive practice, for over twenty years, in international commercial and investment arbitration, international dispute resolution, private and public international law.

    Crina teaches International Commercial Arbitration; Advanced International Arbitration; International Investment Law and Arbitration; International Commercial Dispute Resolution, Negotiation and Mediation, International Commercial Litigation and Conflicts of Laws; Legal English and Oral and Written Advocacy. Crina’s teaching is constantly praised by students: “having Crina as the main lecturer was incredible as we could learn more from her and her experience” (Stockholm University, 2022); “super interesting to attend class this semester” (Stockholm University, 2022); “we mostly had classes with the Course director, Crina, and she was amazing. So pedagogical and dedicated and she gave us the right tools to tackle the Legal English” (Stockholm University, 2022 etc.

    Crina is widely recognized as a leading international dispute resolution academic. She is frequently invited as keynote speaker to address topical issues in international arbitration and dispute resolution. Crina has been a visiting professor at Uppsala University (Sweden), University of London (UK), University of Notre Dame (US), Karlstad University (Sweden), Queen Mary University of London (UK), Nirma University (India), Gujarat National Law University (India) National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (Greece), International University of Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina), University of Texas (US), Universidad de Chile (Chile), etc. Crina teaches in the Oxford Diploma Course on International Commercial Arbitration of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, and she is a member of the Education and Training Reform Advisory Group of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. Crina has been awarded the Prize for the Contribution to the Development of the Romanian Arbitration Law and Practice by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Romania in October 2023.

    Crina is frequently engaged as expert in international dispute resolution reform, including by T 20, the official G 20 engagement group, on Reforming Investor-State Dispute Settlement and Promotion of Trade and Investment Cooperation (Saudi Arabia, 2020); by the International Bar Association (IBA) on the revision the Guidelines on Conflicts of Interest in International Arbitration, 2023, as the chair of the Third-Party Funding sub-group; and by arbitration institutions, in the revision of their arbitration rules, including by the Asian International Arbitration Centre (AIAC) and the SCC Arbitration Institute. Crina also advises States in the implementation of modern arbitration, mediation and commercial litigation legislation.

    Crina holds various appointments, including as the managing editor of Kluwer Arbitration Blog, co-managing editor of the ITA Arbitration Report and member of editorial boards of prestigious journals in the field, including of the Journal of International Arbitration, Brill Research Perspectives in International Investment Law and Arbitration, Bloomsbury’s Global Energy Law and Policy etc. Crina is Vice-Chair of the Academic Council and member of the Executive Committee of the Institute for Transnational Arbitration (ITA) of the Center for American and International Law.

    Crina is member of the Board of the SCC Arbitration Institute since 2020, and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators.

    Since 2018, Crina is a delegate observer to the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), the core legal body of the United Nations, with key role in the harmonization and modernization of the law of international trade, including arbitration, mediation, electronic commerce, insolvency law etc. Currently, she is actively participating in UNCITRAL Working Group II: Dispute Settlement, addressing technology-related dispute resolution and adjudication, and in UNCITRAL Working Group III: Investor-State Dispute Settlement Reform, which elaborates the international framework for a multilateral investment court system, among others. Her publications are extensively referenced in the UNCITRAL documents, for example, the paper on the Denial of Benefits’ Clause in Investment Treaty Arbitration, 2018, Queen Mary School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 293/2018, co-authored, is quoted in UNCITRAL paper no. A/CN.9/WG.III/WP.232 of 31 July 2023, on the Possible reform of investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS), on the denial of benefits right in investment law and arbitration.

    Crina’s academic work includes published monographs and edited volumes on Investors, States, and Arbitrators in the Crosshairs of International Investment Law and Environmental Protection [co-author, BRILL, 2020]; The Future of Investment Treaty Arbitration in the EU [co-editor, Wolters Kluwer, 2020]; Construction Arbitration in Central and Eastern Europe: Contemporary Issues [co-editor, Wolters Kluwer, 2019]; The Energy Charter Treaty: The Notion of Investor [author, Wolters Kluwer, 2012] etc., and numerous publications in leading legal journals and reviews, including on the Denial of Benefits in Investment Law [Max Planck Encyclopaedia of International Procedural Law, Oxford University Press, 2019]; on Article V(1)(e) of the New York Convention: To Enforce or Not to Enforce Set Aside Arbitral Awards?, [Journal of International Arbitration, Volume 39, Issue 3 (2022) pp. 397 – 410]; on Recent Trends in Investment Arbitration on the Right to Regulate, Environment, Health and Corporate Social Responsibility: Too Much or Too Little? [ICSID Review - Foreign Investment Law Journal, Oxford University Press, 2023], etc.

    Crina is currently leading a research project on Costs in International Commercial Arbitration, which benefited from a grant from the Edvard Cassel Foundation, Sweden, from access to the arbitral awards of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and of the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce (SCC Arbitration Institute), and from a Research Fellowship from Oxford University, the Institute of European and Comparative Law, and the Stockholm Centre for Commercial Law, Stockholm University. The research will be published in 2024, as a monograph, by Wolters Kluwer. Crina is also working on an edited volume on Reforming Arbitration Reform: Emerging Voices, New Strategies, Evolving Values, based on the works of the 20th conference of the Institute for Transnational Arbitration and the American Society of International Law in 2023, which she co-chaired.

    In addition to UNCITRAL, Crina’s academic work is widely cited by courts, including by the Court of Justice of the European Union in Moldova v. Komstroy, C-741/19; the Swiss Federal Tribunal in Case 4A_492/2021; and the Singapore Court of Appeal in Case [2018] SGCA 81; and by arbitral tribunals, including in Patel Engineering Limited (India) v. Republic of Mozambique, (Permanent Court of Arbitration Case No. 2020-21); Littop Enterprises Limited, Bridgemont Ventures Limited and Bordo Management Limited v. Ukraine (SCC Arbitration Institute Case No. V 2015/092), PV Investors v the Kingdom of Spain, (Permanent Court of Arbitration Case No. 2012-14), Isolux Netherlands, BV v. the Kingdom of Spain, (SCC Arbitration Institute Case No. V2013/153), LSG Building Solutions GmbH and others v. Romania, (ICSID-International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, World Bank, Case No. ARB/18/19) etc. Crina’s academic publications are frequently cited by the peers, and her submissions as amicus curiae were accepted by the US Supreme Court, in ZF Automotive US, Inc. v. Luxshare, Ltd., Judgment of 15 July 2022; and by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in the joined cases NextEra Energy Global Holdings B.V., et al. v. the Kingdom of Spain, and 9REN Holding S.A.R.L. v. the Kingdom of Spain.

    Besides her academic work, Crina has been involved in international arbitration for over twenty years as arbitrator, legal expert, counsel, and the head of Amcham Brazil Arbitration and Mediation Center. Crina has been appointed in numerous arbitrations, as presiding, sole arbitrator and co-arbitrator under the rules of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA), the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC), the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce (SCC Arbitration Institute), the Finland Arbitration Institute (FAI), Vienna International Arbitral Centre (VIAC), the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules and the Court of International Commercial Arbitration-Romanian Chamber of Commerce (CCIR-Romania).

    Crina holds a PhD degree from Queen Mary University of London (UK), LL.M. in International Commercial Arbitration Law from Stockholm University (Sweden), M.Sc. in International Business from Academy of Economic Studies (Romania), and LL.B. from University of Bucharest (Romania). Crina also holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching in Higher Education (UK) and she is Fellow of Advance HE (formerly, the UK Higher Education Academy).

   Crina speaks fluently English, Portuguese, and Romanian, and has good knowledge of French, Spanish and Swedish.

 

Crina is interested in supervising PhDs in the following areas of study: commercial and investment arbitration, investment law, international commercial litigation, ADR, energy law and dispute resolution.

Teaching

Research

Crina's research focuses on international commercial and investment arbitration, public and private international law, employing doctrinal and empirical research methods.

Her current research projects address the following:

  • Monograph: Costs in International Commercial Arbitration, to be published by Wolters Kluwer in 2024. This is the first monograph to be published on the topic of costs in international commercial arbitration, addressing current research questions pertaining to the allocation of costs, nature of costs recoverable in commercial arbitration, issues of third-party funding and the determination of costs in commercial arbitration etc.
  • Edited Book: Reforming Arbitration Reform: Emerging Voices, New Strategies, Evolving Values, to be published in 2024. The book will address the questions of sustainability, inclusiveness, and regionalism, as driving forces for reconsidering the arbitration reform. Sustainability and inclusiveness, including the rebalancing of a range of social and environmental interests, affect international arbitration practice on many levels. On regionalism, rulemaking affecting international arbitration practice today, in significant part, is regional rulemaking by international and supranational actors. These concerns will ultimately have an impact on the law-making process in international arbitration.
  •  Journal Article: The Duty of Curiosity and Arbitrator Appointment in Sports Arbitration, in BCDR International Arbitration Review, [Wolters Kluwer, forthcoming, 2024]

Crina's academic work is also used by international organizations. For example, the research on the Duration of Investor-State Dispute Settlement Proceedings, co-authored, published in the 2020 Journal of World Investment & Trade 21, 300–335, was included by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) in its Working Group III discussions (see: https://uncitral.un.org/en/working_groups/3/investor-state) and papers, such as the Note by the UNCITRAL Secretariat on “Possible reform of investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS)—cost and duration”, A/CN.9/WG.III/WP.153. Crina's academic publications are frequently cited by the peers, in leading publications, and her research includes submissions as amicus curiae before the US Supreme Court, as in ZF Automotive US, Inc. v. Luxshare, Ltd., Judgment of 15 July 2022; and policy papers, such as the one before T 20 - an official G 20 engagement group, on the Reforming Investor-State Dispute Settlement and Promotion of Trade and Investment Cooperation, Saudi Arabia, 2020.