​Young Practitioners and Scholars Essay Competition 2025

The Editorial Committee of the European Investment Law and Arbitration Review invites original, unpublished, high-quality submissions for the Young Practitioners and Scholars Essay Competition 2025.

The deadline for submission is 1 September 2025.

The essay competition is open to practitioners, scholars, and students from around the world.

To be eligible, authors must at the time of submission:

    • have a PQE of 7 years or less (e.g., Year of Call 2018 or more recent); or
    • be enrolled in a law degree course such as an LLB, JD, BCL, LLM, PhD, DPhil (or local equivalents).

 ​Authors are free to choose the topic of their essay to the extent that it relates to EU investment law and arbitration, including one of the topics in the Call for Papers for this issue:

  • The continued impact of the Termination Agreement on the enforcement and recognition of awards – within and outside the EU
  • The recent results of the UNCITRAL Working Group III on ISDS reform
  • The impact of the announced common withdrawal of the EU and its Member States from the Energy Charter Treaty – on pending and new disputes as well as for the recognition and enforcement of ECT awards within and outside the EU
  • The potentially increasing role of the ECtHR for investment protection after the termination of the intra-EU BITs and the announced withdrawal from the ECT
  • The impact of the war against Ukraine for European investors and their investment protection
  • Existing investment protection standards under EU law
  • EU sanctions and investment law and arbitration
  • The interaction between tax and investment law
  • The impact of new EU legislation (e.g. Foreign Investment Screening mechanism, Cross Border Adjustment measures) on foreign investors and BITs
  • Human rights and EU investment law and arbitration
  • Climate change and EU investment law and arbitration
  • The UK as an investment destination post-Brexit

Submissions should be between 5,000 and 12,000 words, inclusive of footnotes. Co-authored submissions are permissible.

All submissions must be in English and must be in conformity with the Review’s house style, which is available here.

It is the responsibility of all authors to ensure that their English is at near-native standard before submitting to the Review.

If the English is not at near-native standard, submissions will not be accepted.

The Editorial Committee reserves the right to reject a submission which does not conform with its house style and/or the level of English.

Submissions are to be emailed as an attached Word document to eilarev@efila.org with the subject “Submission for EILAR Essay Competition 2025”.

Winners will be chosen by the Editorial Committee of the Review.  The Editorial Committee reserves the right not to award any prize if they conclude that no essay of sufficiently high academic quality has been submitted.

 

Prizes
The winning submission and the runner-up submission will be published in the Review.

In addition, the following prizes will be awarded:

  • First prize: EUR 500,- worth of books sponsored by the publisher
  • Second prize: EUR 250,- worth of books sponsored by the publisher
  • Third prize: EUR 150,- worth of books sponsored by the publisher
  • All winners will receive a complimentary pass to the next EFILA Annual Conference.