Ryan is a senior associate in the Paris office. He practises in all areas of international dispute settlement, including inter-State disputes, investor-State arbitration, and international commercial arbitration. His experience extends across cases before a wide range of international tribunals, including as counsel before the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, and numerous arbitral tribunals, as well as in ICSID annulment proceedings. His arbitration practice has included cases governed by a range of applicable laws spanning international law and both common law and civil law legal systems, and it has covered various industry sectors with particular experience in disputes arising in the energy and banking sectors.

Ryan’s recent experience includes:

  • Counsel for the Kingdom of Bahrain in parallel cases against Qatar before the International Court of Justice regarding the jurisdiction of the ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation) Council
  • Counsel for the Republic of Italy in a dispute with Panama before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea
  • Counsel for the Kingdom of Bahrain in an investment treaty dispute arising out of the alleged expropriation of an Iranian-owned bank
  • Counsel for the Kingdom of Bahrain in a commercial arbitration with a French company arising out a failed power plant project
  • Counsel for a Russian businessman in a commercial arbitration arising out of a corporate dispute in the Russian logistics sector and related proceedings before the English High Court
  • Counsel for an international energy company in two multibillion-dollar commercial arbitrations arising out of a national oil company’s failure to supply gas under a long-term contract
  • Counsel for an international commodities trader in a commercial arbitration involving early determination proceedings
  • Counsel in two confidential ICSID annulment proceedings

Before joining Three Crowns, Ryan completed a doctorate in Public International Law at the University of Oxford, where he also taught Public International Law and English Contract Law.  He was formerly a Judge’s Clerk at the New Zealand Court of Appeal and a Teaching Fellow in Law at Victoria University of Wellington.

Ryan is a co-author, with Luke Sobota and former President of the International Court of Justice, Judge Stephen Schwebel, of the second edition of International Arbitration: Three Salient Problems (Cambridge, 2020).

Ryan was educated in New Zealand at the University of Canterbury, where he received first class honours degrees in both Law and Arts (Ancient History), and then at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar and received a Bachelor of Civil Law (Distinction) and a Doctor of Philosophy.