Speaker 10.06.25
10.06
Washington Arbitration Week 2025
1001 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC, 20004
555 12th St NW, Washington, DC, 20004
Gary Shaw is a litigator specializing in international arbitration, judgment enforcement and sovereign representation, and is experienced in representing foreign governments in disputes before ICSID, UNCITRAL and U.S. courts.
Gary serves as counsel to Mexico in multiple ongoing investment disputes arising under the NAFTA, the USMCA and other treaties. As counsel, he frequently takes the lead on issues related to jurisdiction, liability and quantum. Gary also has extensive experience practicing before U.S. courts. He counsels sovereign and private clients on matters related to judgment enforcement under the New York Convention and the Federal Arbitration Act. Gary also works with victims of terrorism to enforce judgments against terrorist states.
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Before joining Pillsbury, Gary clerked for a federal judge in the Southern District of Florida. Prior to that, he worked in offices at the Justice Department and the State Department. He has published extensively in the fields of international arbitration and international law, with works featured in the ICSID Review, the George Washington International Law Review, and Global Arbitration Review (GAR).
Representative Experience
- Achieved a full victory for a Latin American state based on a lack of jurisdiction under the NAFTA.
- Secured a no-money settlement of a billion-dollar award issued against a foreign government by initiating revision proceedings under the ICSID Rules.
- Counsel to the Governments of Pakistan, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic and Moldova in various arbitrations and court proceedings.
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- Counsel to victims of terrorism in judgment enforcement proceedings under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) and the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA).
- Counsel to transgender individuals in a federal civil rights trial involving denial of Medicaid benefits.
- Counsel to a foreign ministry in an enforcement action before the Southern District of Mississippi.
- Counsel to a Brazilian subfranchisee in an AAA arbitration filed by the subfranchisor.
Professional Highlights
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Jurisdiction Ratione Temporis, Investment Treaty Arbitration In-Depth (June 2024)
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- External Publications (cont'd)
- Sorting Circuit Split on Foreign Arbitration Treaty's Authority, Law360 (April 2024)
- Circuit Split: Is the New York Convention Enforceable in the United States, Lexology (March 2024)
- Pursuing Claims Against Foreign State-Owned Companies in the United States, ABA Litigation Journal (November 2023)
- Book Review: ICSID Rules and Regulations 2022: Article-by-Article Commentary, ICSID Review (June 2023)
- Can Embassies Be Sued by Their Employees?, Washington Lawyer (June 2023)
- Exercising Governmental Authority to Claim Section 1782 Assistance: What Does It Mean?, Journal of International Arbitration (December 2022)
- A Look at ICSID’s New Transparency Rules, GAR (July 2022)
- The 2022 ICSID Rules: A Leap Towards Greater Transparency in Investment Arbitration, ICSID Review (June 2022)
- The Sultan of Sulu Award: Is It Enforceable in the U.S. Under the New York Convention? The Institute for Transnational Arbitration (May 2022)
- Looking in on Transparency: A 2020 Review of States’ Reactions to the UNCITRAL Rules on Transparency and the Mauritius Convention, 2020 Oxford Yearbook on International Investment Law and Policy (November 2021)
- Overcoming the Tight Window to Vacate Arbitration Awards, Washington Lawyer Magazine (September 2021)
- Opening the Umbrella: How the Argentine Economic Crisis Shaped the Modern Umbrella Clause, Arbitration in Argentina (Kluwer 2020)
- Third-Party Funding in Investment Arbitration: How Non-Disclosure Can Cause Harm for the Sake of Profit, Arbitration International, 33 Arb. Int’l 109 (2017)
- Convicting Inhumanity in Absentia: Holding Trials in Absentia at the International Criminal Court, The George Washington International Law Review (2012) (cited by the International Criminal Court)
- Speaking Engagements
- At Pillsbury, Gary has hosted events and panel discussions related to international arbitration and sovereign representation. He has also led seminars for young professionals on the topic of investment.
Education
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J.D., The George Washington University Law School, 2012
with honors; The George Washington International Law Review; Lambda LawB.A., West Virginia University, 2009
summa cum laude; Phi Beta Kappa
Admissions
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District of Columbia
Virginia
Courts
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U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
Clerkships
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Judicial Law Clerk, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, 2016 – 2017