Insegnamento a.a. 2026-2027

- Foundations of cross-border disputes, party strategy, and the virtues and vices of forum shopping. 
- Cross-border litigation, including jurisdiction, service of process abroad, and recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments. 
- International commercial arbitration, including arbitration agreements, internationality, competence-competence, separability, the legal seat, governing laws and rules, arbitrators' roles, and arbitral procedure. 
- Recognition, set-aside, and enforcement of arbitral awards, with particular attention to the New York Convention and Article V defenses. 
-Specialized and applied contexts, including sports arbitration, investment arbitration, international climate change disputes, and stolen art and cultural property disputes. 

•  Explain the principal legal, procedural, and institutional frameworks governing cross-border litigation, international commercial arbitration, investment arbitration, and selected specialized dispute resolution mechanisms. 
• Analyze core jurisdictional and procedural issues in transnational disputes, including jurisdiction, service abroad, recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments, arbitral jurisdiction, arbitration agreements, separability, competence-competence, the seat, and applicable laws and rules. 
• Describe and apply the frameworks established by the United Nations Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards and the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration. 
• Evaluate how contracts, national laws, institutional rules, treaties, conventions, courts, arbitral tribunals, and arbitral institutions interact in multi-jurisdictional disputes. 
• Use theoretical models such as legal pluralism, law without a state, and global governance to explain how transnational dispute resolution systems operate across and beyond national legal orders. 
• Critically assess strategic and policy tensions in international dispute resolution, including forum shopping, enforcement risk, party autonomy, arbitrator accountability and impartiality, domestic sovereignty, regulatory authority, and public-law concerns in arbitration.
• Apply legal principles, institutional frameworks, and theoretical perspectives to concrete cross-border commercial, investment, and public-law disputes.

• Analyze transnational dispute scenarios and assess jurisdictional strategy, forum choice, procedural options, applicable legal regimes, and enforcement risk. 
• Compare litigation, international commercial arbitration, investment arbitration, and specialized dispute resolution mechanisms as tools for managing and resolving cross-border disputes. 
• Draft, evaluate, and critique governing law and dispute resolution clauses, identifying the contractual, statutory, treaty-based, institutional, and procedural layers that may affect future disputes. 
• Apply treaties, conventions, institutional rules, statutes, case law, and academic materials to hypothetical facts, practical problems, and evolving dispute scenarios. 
• Construct legal arguments and strategic advice for diverse clients and stakeholders, including states, corporations, NGOs, individuals, arbitral institutions, and public authorities. 
• Work effectively in discussions, role plays, simulations, debates, and case-study exercises, using legal reasoning, strategic judgment, and critical reflection.  
• Communicate complex legal and institutional issues clearly, both orally and in writing, in ways that are responsive to different audiences and dispute-resolution contexts.

• Lectures
• Guest speaker's talks (in class or in distance)
• Company visits
• Practical Exercises
• Individual works / Assignments
• Collaborative Works / Assignments
• Interaction/Gamification
• Competitions/Hackathons

The course uses a mixed teaching format combining lectures, guided discussion, and interactive learning methods. Classes introduce the legal and institutional frameworks governing cross-border litigation, international arbitration, investment arbitration, and selected specialized fields of dispute resolution through analysis of treaties, regulations, case law, and academic commentary. 

 
Teaching methods include role-playing exercises, classroom discussion of practical problems, interactive exercises, case-study analysis, student debates, guest lectures, selected film-based discussion in relation to particular topics, individual assignments, collaborative project presentations, role play, and simulations. The course is designed to promote doctrinal understanding and the ability to apply legal principles to concrete transnational disputes. Students are expected to prepare the assigned materials before class and to contribute to discussion.

Attending students are assessed through active class participation and a written final exam. Class participation in discussions constitutes 20% of the final grade based on responses collected on exercises and in-class voting, and is intended to assess meaningful engagement, critical thinking, oral communication, and the ability to apply legal concepts in interactive exercises and discussion. 
The final exam constitutes 80% of the grade and assesses students' knowledge and understanding of the course frameworks, as well as their ability to analyze hypothetical transnational disputes and apply relevant legal principles. The exam will consist of one open essay question, several short answer questions, and a post-exam AI-based self-assessment. 

For all students, the written exam may include open-answer analysis of a hypothetical fact pattern, multiple-choice questions, and short-answer questions. After the in-class exam, students complete a take-home component in which they evaluate their own exam answers using artificial intelligence. Additional details and sample exam questions will be distributed in class.

Required materials: background treatise excerpts, select cases, treaty and statutory materials, and articles discussed in class, to be posted on BBoard. 
Recommended readings: additional readings will be provided, and assignments specified in the day-by-day syllabus.