The Washington Foreign Law Society
has the pleasure to invite you to the following event:
Down from Olympus: Foreign Sovereign Litigation in U.S. Courts
Tuesday, December 2, 2025
From 6:00 to 8:00 PM ET (including reception)
Location: 1717 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Please register below (Please RSVP promptly; space is limited)
If you are not yet a member of the WFLS, please join here.
This panel will address under-covered aspects of foreign sovereign litigation in US courts. Foreign sovereigns are afforded presumptive immunity under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. They must affirmatively asset their immunity, however, and their arguments do not always prevail. In ensuing litigation, foreign sovereign status imbues the proceeding with a special character extending to issues of jurisdiction, service, discovery, liability, and post-judgment asset protection. This panel will investigate these issues and more from the perspectives of plaintiffs, defendants, and non-parties.
Panelists:
Charles Camp, Law Offices of Charles Camp PC
Goran Jutriša, Embassy of the Republic of Croatia
Rathna Ramamurthi, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP
David Stewart, Georgetown University Law Center
Moderator: Craig D. Gaver, Continental PLLC
Introduction by: Alexandra Bochnakova, President of the Washington Foreign Law Society
Charles Camp. For more than forty years, Charles has devoted his practice to resolving complex international commercial disputes, including the recovery of substantial debts owed by foreign entities to both international and domestic clients. After two decades at major international law firms, he founded his own firm in October 2002, dedicating it exclusively to international dispute resolution.
Over the course of his career, Charles has handled numerous cross-border matters through litigation, arbitration and negotiation.
Since 2005, Charles has taught International Negotiations at The George Washington University Law School. He has also led International Negotiations seminars at Tecnológico de Monterrey, the largest private university in Mexico, and regularly teaches courses in Negotiation, Persuasion and Influence to MBA students at the E.J. Ourso College of Business at Louisiana State University.
Goran Jutriša. Goran is First Secretary at the Embassy of Croatia in Washington, D.C., where his portfolio, inter alia, includes advising on legal matters, and U.S. sanctions and export controls. He joined the Croatian Embassy after two years at the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Sanctions Policy and Implementation as Croatia’s Transatlantic Diplomatic Fellow. Previously, Goran has advised the Croatian Government on the country’s key international law cases, including the Genocide Case at the International Court of Justice, and the ad hoc border arbitration with Slovenia. As the Croatian Prime Minister’s Deputy Foreign Policy Advisor, Goran advised the Prime Minister on multiple investor-state and commercial arbitrations. Goran holds a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Zagreb’s School of Law, and master’s degrees from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Harvard Law School
Rathna Ramamurthi. Rathna Ramamurthi is a Partner at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP. Her practice involves a broad range of litigation and arbitration matters. She focuses on international disputes, including those involving foreign states and state-owned entities, as well as disputes involving antitrust issues, and other high-stakes matters for clients across a range of industries. Rathna has represented clients at every stage of proceedings, including preliminary injunctions, motions to dismiss, fact and expert discovery, summary judgment, trial/hearing preparation, asset enforcement, and settlement. She has also represented clients in numerous appeals and has argued before various district courts and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
David P. Stewart is Professor from Practice (Emeritus), Georgetown University Law Center, where he taught International and Transnational Law and co-directed the Global Law Scholars program and the Center for Transnational Business and the Law. He joined the faculty in 2008 following a career in the Office of the Legal Adviser, U.S. Department of State, where he served as Assistant Legal Adviser for Private International Law, Diplomatic Law and Litigation, African Affairs, Human Rights and Refugees, Law Enforcement and Intelligence, and International Claims and Investment Disputes, among other positions. He was previously in private practice in New York City. A past President of the American Branch of the International Law Association, he is a member of the American Law Institute (co-Reporter for the Restatement (Fourth), Foreign Relations Law of the United States (2018) and author of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act: A Guide For Judges (FJC 2d ed. 2018).
Craig D. Gaver. Craig is a partner at Continental PLLC. His practice focuses on legal problems that cross international boundaries. He brings to Continental over a decade of experience representing and advising sovereign states and foreign agencies, Fortune 500 companies, investment firms, and high net worth individuals in the oil and gas, renewable energy, mining, infrastructure, transportation, financial, and technology sectors on their most challenging commercial, civil, and regulatory matters.
His multifaceted practice encompasses complex litigation and arbitration before U.S. courts and international tribunals, enforcement of foreign arbitral awards, foreign investment protection under bilateral and multilateral treaties, economic sanctions and international trade, sovereign immunity, sovereign debt recovery, and public international law. Craig is also an adjunct professor at William & Mary Law School.
Alexandra Bochnakova. Alexandra is the President of the Washington Foreign Law Society. She is an international lawyer educated and licensed in France and in the United States. She is currently working as Corporate and International Counsel at the Office of General Counsel at Finca Impact Finance, Washington DC, a microfinance institution with over 15 subsidiaries in emerging nations. Previously, she was Head of Corporate Affairs and Corporate Secretary of the Board of Directors of the holding, at Pierre Fabre Group, France, working on corporate and regulatory matters with nearly one hundred companies of the Group in France and worldwide. Prior to that, and for over 12 years, she was the founding partner of SELAS Bochnakova, a boutique law firm focused on international law and cross-border matters. In parallel, she was an Adjunct Professor at the University of Toulouse 1 Capitole and ESICAD Business School in Toulouse, France.
