Lee M. Caplan Email & Phone Number

Washington D.C. Metro Area

Lee Caplan is a partner in our Washington DC office in the firm's International Arbitration and Dispute Resolution practice group. He counsels private and sovereign clients in a wide range of matters involving international dispute resolution, public international law, and international investment law and policy. Mr. Caplan regularly appears before international tribunals in connection with complex and high-value disputes arising out of concession agreements, investment treaties, and other international agreements. His experience spans a range of industries from oil and gas to telecommunications. He is the co-author of a leading treatise on international arbitration entitled The UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules: A Commentary.Representative matters include:- Advise and represent clients in connection with disputes arising under investment treaties.Counsel clients making investments abroad on maximizing investment treaty protections and respecting principles of corporate social responsibility.- Advise and represent clients in connection with oil and gas disputes under petroleum concession agreements, including in commercial arbitration proceedings.- Advise clients on complex public international law matters, including treaty law and practice, international investment law, the law of the sea, the law of diplomatic protection, and the laws of war.- Advise and represent clients in connection with maritime boundary disputes, including in proceedings before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS).Lee heads the firm’s Corporate Social Responsibility practice group. Additionally, he provides pro bono support to the Iraqi government through the US Commerce Department’s Commercial Law Development Program and serves on the US delegation to the UN Commission on International Trade Law.

Washington D.C. Metro Area

Lee teaches a course on international courts and tribunals.

Lee successfully defended the US in numerous arbitrations before the Iran-US Claims Tribunal and before an ad hoc arbitral tribunal in Ecuador v. United States. Lee also worked closely with the Department’s Investment Arbitration Team to develop positions taken in US pleadings and non-disputing submissions in NAFTA and CAFTA-DR arbitration, and he regularly advised other State Department offices on matters relating to international arbitration. Lee also served as a US delegate to the UN Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) during the development of rules of transparency for investor-State arbitration. Lee has extensive experience with international investment law and policy. While at the State Department, Lee was integrally involved in efforts to encourage and protect foreign investment by US businesses, serving as the Department’s principal lawyer in negotiations to conclude investment treaties with China and the Czech Republic and the investment chapter of a free trade agreement with the Trans-Pacific Partnership countries. In addition, he made critical contributions to the Obama Administration’s review of the US Model Bilateral Investment treaty, providing counsel on proposals to revise the template on which US investment treaty negotiations are based. Lee regularly advised the State Department and US embassies on strategies for supporting domestic companies seeking government advocacy when obtaining foreign contracts, pursuing foreign investments, or settling disputes with foreign governments. He has also advised the US government on corporate social responsibility matters, including the 2011 revision of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, the development and operation of a more robust US National Contact Point process to resolve CSR complaints, and the drafting of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems.

Washington D.C. Metro Area

Lee taught International Business Transactions.

The Hague, The Netherlands

Lee clerked at the Iran-US Claims Tribunal for Judge Charles N. Brower.

Baltimore, Md

Lee clerked on the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit for Judge Diana Gribbon Motz.

Juris Doctor (J.D.)

Mald

Bachelor’S Degree

Magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa