Donald (Trey) Earl Childress III

Trey has briefed and argued cases as counsel before the International Court of Justice and has consulted as an expert on various matters before international arbitral tribunals, with particular experience in PCA and ICSID-administered arbitrations. He has appeared as counsel before courts throughout the United States, including the United States Supreme Court, and has appeared as an expert before various courts outside of the United States. Trey was the 28th Counselor on International Law to the Legal Adviser at the U.S. State Department, which involved advising on the formulation of the government’s arbitration and litigation strategy. He also represented the United States before international bodies, including as part of the U.S. delegation to UNCITRAL Working Group III (regarding reforms to Investor-State Dispute Settlement), before the Council of Europe’s Committee of Legal Advisers on Public International Law (CAHDI), and in the Diplomatic Session of the Hague Judgments Convention.

Trey is a tenured professor of law at the Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law and has been a Scholar-in-Residence at the New York University School of Law’s Center for Transnational Litigation, Arbitration, and Commercial Law, and a visiting professor of law at the Washington & Lee University School of Law. He teaches courses on international arbitration and litigation, international business transactions, conflict of laws, comparative law, ethical considerations in international arbitration, civil procedure, and ethical lawyering. He has also taught courses through the Center for American and International Law.

Trey regularly writes law review articles and is a co-author of Transnational Law and Practice (Aspen Publishers 2015 & 2021) and Transnational Litigation in a Nutshell (West Academic 2021). He has co-edited a volume entitled Private International Law and Arbitration (Edward Elgar 2018). He has also organised academic conferences on the relationship between international arbitration and courts.

Trey is an elected member of the American Law Institute, a member of the Institute for Transnational Arbitration’s Academic Council, a director of the American Society of Comparative Law, and a member of the Advisory Committee on International Law of the U.S. State Department.