Sara D’Sousa, who completed her LLM in International Business Law with Distinction in 2023, has won First Prize and Best Oralist in the 10-year anniversary edition of the Nappert Prize in International Arbitration.
The Nappert Prize was created by eminent arbitrator Sophie Nappert of Three Verulam Buildings (3VB) Barristers and is administered by the Faculty of Law at McGill University. The Prize is awarded biennially for the best unpublished paper on a topic related to international commercial or investment arbitration and is open to young scholars and practitioners worldwide. The distinguished jury in 2024 included Meg Kinnear, the former Secretary-General of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), and several partners in prominent arbitration firms.
Sara’s paper was titled The Protection of Crypto-Assets in International Investment Law and was based on her LLM dissertation. Sara received $4,000 in prize money and an invitation to present her winning paper at a symposium held at McGill University, Montreal, where she received a further prize of $1,000 for Best Oralist. Sara plans to publish her paper in the ICSID Review–Foreign Investment Law Journal, the field’s leading peer-reviewed journal.
Responding to the award, Sara said:
‘It is an incredible honour to be awarded the Nappert Prize and Best Oralist. My success is due in no small part to the invaluable guidance and support of my supervisor, Dr Oliver Hailes. I would also like to thank Dr Mona Paulsen for her advice while I was preparing for the symposium.
‘The Nappert Prize provides an unparalleled platform for young scholars to gain recognition for their original research. I am grateful to Sophie Nappert for her vision and generosity in creating the Prize. Thank you, also, to Professor Andrea Bjorklund and Tanya Oberoi for their seamless organization, and to the distinguished jury for their time and insights.
‘The LSE’s encouragement of multi-disciplinary legal research, combined with the LLM course on International Arbitration and the co-curricular Fintech and Digital Finance Masterclass, were pivotal in shaping the ideas I explored in my paper. I hope the paper contributes to the evolving discourse on crypto-assets and international law, and I strongly encourage young scholars with an interest in arbitration to submit their papers for the next edition of the Nappert Prize.’
Sara is originally from India and completed an internship with the World Bank after her studies at the LSE Law School. She is now preparing for the Solicitors Qualifying Examination before starting as a trainee solicitor with Ropes & Gray LLP in London.