Profile

Dr Mary B Ayad specialises in international commercial arbitration and international investment arbitration law, with a special focus on investor-State disputes with Arab governments. Her other areas of expertise are international human rights law and ADR, particularly restorative justice, mediation, and negotiation. She has advised European and Arab governments with respect to international arbitration and contract negotiation, in an academic capacity. Her research was awarded a prize by KPMG, the Mercantile Court of Arbitration of Spain and the Centre for European Studies, Madrid. She is a former international human rights law convenor and lecturer to postgraduate students at Macquarie Law School. Her international experience includes working at the Attorney-General’s Office in Denver, Colorado, the United Nations UNHCR Field Office in Cairo, and teaching, coaching and judging for Macquarie Law School. She is widely published with over 20 articles in learned journals in the matter of international law and has a book coming out with Springer Publishers in the second half of 2013. She has also published opinion editorials with respect to the Arab Spring. She is a member of Australian Lawyers for Human Rights (ALHR). She holds a BA in political science/pre law (CU Boulder), an MA in social justice in international management (The School for International Training), an MA in international human rights law (University of Malta Faculty of Laws) and a doctorate in philosophy (Macquarie Law School), and holds an LLB (Hons) from Oxford Brookes University.