| |
|
919 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10022
|
T:
+1 212 909 6233
F:
+1 212 909 6836
|
| |
|
Areas of Practice
Experience
Donald Francis Donovan is a litigation partner who concentrates his practice in international disputes before courts in the United States, international arbitration tribunals, and international courts. Based on surveys of other practitioners, Chambers Global (2010) recently identified him as one of the eight leading international arbitration practitioners (first band) and nine leading public international lawyers (first band) in the world. He has been described by that publication and others as “one of the best advocates that you will ever see,” as “one of the world’s leading practitioners in both investment treaty and commercial arbitration;” and as a “visionary,” an “absolute star,” a “tremendous intellect,” a “truly amazing lawyer,” and a “towering figure” in the field of international arbitration. The Legal 500 U.S. (2008) said simply that “there is no-one better.” He was also ranked as one of the thirty-one leading litigators in the United States in Expert Guides to the Leading Lawyers: Best of the Best USA (Euromoney 2009). In June 2006, with his partner David W. Rivkin, Mr. Donovan was awarded the first Chambers Award of Excellence in International Arbitration. Later that year, for his achievements in both international arbitration and international human rights, he was awarded the Premio Nacional de Jurisprudencia by the Mexican Bar Association, the first non-Mexican so honored, and shortly thereafter, he was inducted as a member of the Orden Mexicana del Águila Azteca, the highest award given by the Government of Mexico to non-Mexicans.
Mr. Donovan has argued international law, arbitration law, commercial law, and other issues before the International Court of Justice, the Arbitral Tribunal Established by the 1930 Hague Agreement, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the US Supreme Court, the US Courts of Appeals for the Second, Third, Fourth, Ninth, and District of Columbia Circuits, and other federal and state courts throughout the country. He regularly handles cases in US courts involving non-US parties; he has conducted arbitrations in venues throughout the world under the auspices of the world’s leading arbitration institutions arising under both contracts and treaties; and he regularly sits as arbitrator in international cases, including under the auspices of ICSID, the ICC, and the ICDR.
Mr. Donovan argued before the ICJ on behalf of Mexico in Avena and Other Mexican Nationals (Mex. v. U.S.) 2004 I.C.J. 1 (Mar. 31), in which the Court held that the United States had violated the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations in the case of 51 Mexican nationals under sentence of death in this country and now must provide review and reconsideration of their convictions and sentences. He also argued before that Court on Mexico’s successful applications for provisional measures at the outset of Avena and in connection with its Request for Interpretation of the Avena Judgment; on behalf of the Federal Republic of Germany in the LaGrand Case (F.D.R. v. United States); and as lead advocate-counselor to the Republic of Paraguay in the Case Concerning the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (Paraguay v. United States). He also represented Oy Metsä- Botnia AB in connection with the Case Concerning Pulp Mills on the River Uruguay (Argentina v. Uruguay) in the ICJ, which concerned Botnia's project in Uruguay.
Mr. Donovan most recently argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in Medellín v. Texas, 128 S. Ct. 1346 (2008), and Medellín v. Dretke, 544 U.S. 660 (2005), in which the Court considered whether the United States must comply with the ICJ’s judgment in Avena. He represented the European Commission as amicus curiae in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, in which the EC urged on the U.S. Supreme Court a rigorous international law approach to the Alien Tort Statute; the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights as amicus curiae in Boumedienne, in which that Court addressed the rights of the Guantánamo detainees to judicial review of their detention; and Amnesty International as amicus curiae before the International Criminal Court in the Bemba case. Mr. Donovan represented the United Nations before US federal courts in New York in Ungar v. PLO, in which the United Nations asserted its rights under the U.N.-U.S. Headquarters Agreement to defeat an attempt to execute a judgment against the Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine to the United Nations, and in Brzak v. United Nations, in which the United Nations successfully asserted its rights under the Convention on Privileges and Immunities.
Mr. Donovan represented the lead claimant in Reineccius v. Bank for International Settlements (Final Award 19 September 2003/Partial Award 22 November 2002) (available at www.pca-cpa.org), before a five-member tribunal constituted under the 1930 Hague Agreement that awarded private shareholders some US$500 million after holding that the Bank had inadequately compensated those shareholders for their compulsorily withdrawn shares. Other current or recent matters include the representation of the Swiss cement manufacturer Holcim Ltd. in its ICSID proceeding against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela for the expropriation of its Venezuelan subsidiary, the Government of Ghana in proceedings in the federal court in Washington, D.C., arising under the New York Convention and in related arbitrations, and Verizon Communications, Inc., and its subsidiary in connection with the sale of shares in Compañía Anónima Nacional Teléfonos de Venezuela (“CANTV”), the largest telephone company in Venezuela, to the Government after it had announced its intention to assume control of CANTV. Mr. Donovan has arbitrated cases under the full range of commercial arrangements, including concessions, joint venture agreements, share purchase agreements, construction contracts, distribution agreements, and insurance and reinsurance agreements, and in the full range of industry sectors, including oil and gas, mining, and manufacturing.
Mr. Donovan serves as Vice-President and one of three U.S. members of the International Council for Commercial Arbitration (ICCA), and as a member of the Board of Directors of Human Rights First (formerly the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights) and Chair of its Litigation Committee. He recently completed a term as Vice-President of the American Society of International Law, and he served from 2000-2005 as Chair of the Institute for Transnational Arbitration. He has also served as Chair of the Arbitration Committee of the U.S. Council for International Business (the US National Committee for the ICC International Court of Arbitration) and a member of the ICC Commission on Arbitration. He served as Program Co-Chair of the Centennial Meeting of the American Society of International Law in Washington, D.C. in March 2006 and as Program Chair of the XIVth Congress of the International Council for Commercial Arbitration (ICCA) in Montreal in June 2006 and of its XVth Congress in Dublin in June 2008.
Mr. Donovan teaches international arbitration at New York University School of Law; he is a Visiting Professor at the School of International Arbitration of Queen Mary University of London; and he serves on the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for International Arbitration Advocacy and on the Advisory Board of the Geneva Master in International Dispute Settlement Program at The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, both in Geneva. He regularly speaks and writes on international arbitration, international litigation, and international law topics. His recent publications include Towards a Unified Approach to the Law Applicable to the Arbitration Agreement in United Status Courts, in Between East and West: Essays in Honour of Ulf Franke (2010) (with Rivkin); El Impacto del Artículo VII, in El Arbitraje Comercial Internacional: Estudio del la Convención de Nueva York con motivo de su 50° aniversario (Abelado Perrot 208) (with Prager); Mandatory Rules of Law in Investment Treaty Arbitration, 18 Am. Rev. Int’l Arb. 205 (2008); The Emerging Recognition of Universal Civil Jurisdiction, 100 Am. J. Int’l L. 142 (2006) (with Roberts); Mitsubishi After Twenty Years: Mandatory Rules Before Courts and International Arbitrators, in Lew & Mistelis, eds., Pervasive Problems in International Arbitration 11 (Kluwer 2006) (with Greenawalt); United States Report, in International Handbook on Commercial Arbitration (Kluwer rev’d 2005) (with Holtzmann); Introducing Foreign Clients to U.S. Civil Litigation, in Legum, ed., International Litigation Strategies and Practice (ABA 2005); The Public Policy Defense in Recognition of Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards in US Courts, in Global Reflections on International Law, Commerce and Dispute Resolution: Liber Amicorum in Honour of Robert Briner (ICC 2005); Speak the Speech: Arbitral Advocacy, 21 Arbitration Int’l 537 (2005); Universal Civil Jurisdiction: The Next Frontier?, 99 Proceedings of the American Society of Int’l Law 117 (2005); and The Allocation of Authority Between Courts and Arbitral Tribunals to Order Interim Measures, in New Horizons in International Commercial Arbitration and Beyond (ICCA Congress Series No. 12/Kluwer 2005).
Mr. Donovan joined Debevoise after serving as Law Clerk to Associate Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the US Supreme Court, Judge Jerome Farris of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and Judge Abraham D. Sofaer of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, and as Legal Assistant to Judge Howard M. Holtzmann of the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal. He received his B.A. in 1977 from the University of Virginia, where he served as captain of the varsity lacrosse team, and his J.D. in 1981 from Stanford Law School, where he served on the Stanford Law Review and was elected to the Order of the Coif. He long served as President of the Board of the Classic Stage Company, an Off-Broadway theatre in New York City. He is competent in Spanish.
Language(s)
English
Bar Admissions
New York
Education
University of Virginia,
1977,
B.A.
Stanford Law School,
1981,
J.D.
|
|