Katia Yannaca-Small
USC Gould School of Law

Katia Yannaca-Small is an arbitrator and a senior international arbitration advisor with Arnold and Porter. She has experience in advising states and state entities in the negotiation of international agreements, representing them in dispute settlement and advising on business and human rights matters. Previously, she was counsel with the International Arbitration and Public International Law groups of Shearman and Sterling LLP.

Prior to joining the private sector, she was the senior legal advisor on international investment with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris, in charge of all the OECD work on international investment agreements and arbitration. At the OECD she also led the work on one of the reviews of the main OECD instrument on responsible business conduct – the Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises – and on the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention. The results of this work have been used as reference by governments and included in several OECD publications.

Yannaca-Small also served as senior counsel with ICSID of the World Bank, where she administered large investor-state arbitrations, and proposed and developed the first ICSID's course on ICSID procedure for government officials and practitioners. She is a frequent speaker and has written extensively in the field of investment arbitration and the intersection between investment arbitration and ESG matters. She edited and authored several chapters of the one of the main treatises in the field, Arbitration under International Investment Agreements: A Guide to the Key Issues, published by Oxford University Press (Second Edition, 2018). 

FACULTY IN THE NEWS

Politi Fact
May 23, 2023
Re: David B. Cruz

Professor David Cruz was recently interviewed about a controversial bill that was passed in Connecticut. "Paying even modest attention to the bill’s definitions should make it clear beyond doubt that it will not be the source of protections based upon the age of people to whom one is attracted or with whom one has sex," Cruz said.

RECENT SCHOLARSHIP

Robin Craig
April, 2023

"Fish, Whales, and a Blue Ethics for the Anthropocene: How Do We Think About the Last Wild Food in the Twenty-First Century?," 95:6 Southern California Law Review 1307-1343 (April 2023).

Robin Craig
April, 2023

"California Exceptionalism in the Colorado River: A Brief History and Implications for the Future."

Robin Craig
April, 2023

"Toward a Global Sustainable Development Agenda Built on Resilience" (with Murray W. Scown, Craig R. Allen, Lance Gunderson, David G. Angeler, Jorge H. Garcia, & Ahjond Garmestani), Global Sustainability (online publication April 2023).