Pieter Bekker

Pieter Bekker is an internationally renowned advocate, arbitrator, and professor of international law and arbitration.

Pieter Bekker is a partner in the Disputes and Energy teams at CMS UK and Head of the CMS Investment Arbitration Task Force and Co-Head of CMS UK’s Public International Law Group. A US qualified lawyer, he combines practising law with a tenured professorial appointment as Chair in International Law at the Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy (CEPMLP) within the University of Dundee (UK), having previously taught at Columbia Law School, where he was the first instructor to develop and teach a course in international investment arbitration. Pieter focuses on dispute risk management and resolution, especially arbitration, and counseling regarding issues of public international law, in which he holds a doctorate. In international arbitration matters, Pieter draws upon a particularly rich background: he was educated and has practised, in both Europe and the United States, in Civil law, Common law and public international law, the legal systems on which international arbitral law and procedure are based. He has experience with all the major arbitration procedures and institutions. He is listed on the American Arbitration Association’s Panel of International Arbitrators (Neutrals) and regularly sits as an arbitrator. He has been recognized in The Who’s Who in Public International Law and New York “Super Lawyers.” Pieter also advises private and public sector clients on a wide range of issues relating to private and public international law. He has extensive experience in matters involving sovereign parties, including States, state-owned entities and international organizations before both domestic and international courts and tribunals. A native of The Netherlands, Pieter was in private practice in Amsterdam before serving for nearly three years as a staff lawyer in the Registry of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the United Nations seated in The Hague. Pieter has also advised a variety of corporate clients in cross-border commercial transactions and financings. He regularly counsels clients in the drafting of arbitration and other clauses for international contracts. Pieter obtained basic and doctoral law degrees from Leiden University (The Netherlands) and a Master's degree from Harvard Law School (1991).