How did you come to choose your research topic?

I have always been interested in procedural questions. The consensual nature of international adjudication, with the limits it imposes on the jurisdiction of international courts and tribunals, has grown over time as one of my centres of interest.

While taking my first steps in international commercial arbitration, I encountered a case in which the arbitral tribunal had to determine whether it had jurisdiction over an entity that was not a party to the arbitration agreement. The peculiarity was that the entity in question was a State. While that was a contractual dispute and this specific question had to be answered by reference to a given domestic law, it raised a broader interrogation in my mind which I was interested in answering from the perspective of public international law: is the consent of a State to the jurisdiction of an international court or tribunal to be treated differently depending on context?

My initial plan was to study State consent to international jurisdiction in general terms, but I ultimately narrowed the focus of my research to a comparison between international dispute settlement mechanisms opposing States and those opposing States and private persons. This was done both to ensure the originality of my research and to give it a sufficiently defined scope. The choice of investment arbitration and human rights litigation as the main areas of focus for my comparison came naturally, given that these are the two main areas of international law where individuals and corporations have acquired the capacity to bring international claims against States, notably through treaty-based mechanisms.

Can you describe your research questions and the methodology you use to approach those questions?

The central research question of my thesis is whether, and to what extent, the operation of State consent to international jurisdiction changes when that consent is addressed to, and can be invoked by, a private party rather than another State. For this purpose, I chose to use inter-State dispute settlement as a comparative baseline against which to conduct my analysis.

Structurally, the thesis is divided into two parts. The first part lays the historical and conceptual foundations of my research question, tracing the evolution of international dispute settlement from a system reserved to States to one in which private persons have acquired the capacity to bring direct claims against States at the international level. The second part builds on these foundations to analyse the operation of State consent to jurisdiction in dispute settlement mechanisms opposing States and private parties, as compared to inter-State ones, focusing on the expression, interpretation and revocation of that consent across these contexts.

Methodologically, I adopted a comprehensive and cross-cutting approach. Rather than examining a single aspect of State consent to international jurisdiction in isolation, my thesis seeks to establish a unified analytical framework structured around the expression, interpretation and revocation of State consent as three successive stages of one single inquiry. At the same time, rather than focusing on a single domain, my thesis seeks to look at international law as a system and to provide clarification and guidance on the operation of State consent to international jurisdiction in a manner that strives for coherence within that system.

What are your major findings?

My research shows that, despite the practical differences in how a State’s agreement to be brought before an international court or tribunal works in different contexts, the commitment to accept international jurisdiction remains fundamentally the same, whether it is directed at other States or at private parties. 

In other words, the fact that the claimant to a given international dispute is a private party rather than another State does not, in itself, call for the application of a separate set of rules or a different analytical framework. This finding challenges a body of academic writing and case law that seeks to treat State consent to international jurisdiction in certain contexts, most notably investment treaty arbitration, as requiring its own special rules. Instead, this study proposes a unifying framework and identifies three factors that explain why the way State consent operates in practice may vary from one context to another.

The first, and most important, factor is the legal instrument in which State consent is recorded, namely whether it is a treaty, creating international obligations between States, or a unilateral act, only obliging the State from which it emanates. This is because the rules that govern how that consent is to be interpreted and, if necessary, withdrawn depend on the nature of that instrument.

The second factor is the role played by reciprocity at the inter-State level. In traditional State-to-State dispute settlement mechanisms, the States’ commitments related to international jurisdiction generally mirror one another, and reciprocity remains fundamental even when consent is provided through unilateral acts. In human rights mechanisms, the States’ obligations are largely independent of mutual performance and hence not based on reciprocity. In investment treaties, the picture is more complex, with a reciprocal commitment at the inter-State level sitting alongside a unilateral offer of consent to arbitration made to private parties.

The third factor is the degree of legal certainty that the parties involved can reasonably expect from the way State consent to international jurisdiction is expressed. In certain cases, the legal framework provides for stronger grounds for reliance than in others, meaning that those to whom that commitment is addressed may enjoy a greater level of protection from any unilateral action by the State having provided consent.

What implications could these findings have for international law?

In proposing a unifying framework grounded in general international law, my thesis seeks to contribute to greater coherence in the treatment of certain jurisdictional questions across different contexts and areas of practice.

In this sense, my thesis may offer guidance on three levels mainly: to States in future treaty-making, to private claimants in proceedings against States in understanding the enforcement of their rights at the international level, and to international courts and tribunals in their approach to questions related to State consent to jurisdiction, specifically on its interpretation and revocation.

What bearing will your doctoral experience have on your career plans?

As a practising arbitration lawyer working on commercial and investment cases, my doctoral experience has already proven (and I expect will continue to prove) of direct benefit in two respects. First, in terms of substance, my research has deepened my understanding of questions that are at the forefront of recent practice, especially in investment treaty arbitration, enabling me to engage with these contemporary issues with greater analytical rigour and to benefit from a solid background knowledge. Second, in terms of methodology, the process of completing my doctoral thesis has sharpened my ability to conduct structured and independent research as well as to build coherent lines of argument, which are both skills that I draw on in my daily work as a lawyer.

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On 5 February 2026, Francesca Dal Poggetto defended her PhD thesis in International Law, titled “Beyond State-to-State: State Consent to International Jurisdiction in Disputes with Private Parties”. Committee members were Emeritus Professor Marcelo Kohen (left), Thesis Co-Supervisor; Professor Joost Pauwelyn (not pictured as he attended remotely), Thesis Co-Supervisor; Professor Zachary Douglas (second from the right), President of the Committee and Internal Member; and Professor August Reinisch (right), Department of European, International and Comparative Law, University of Vienna, Austria.

Citation of the PhD thesis: 
Dal Poggetto, Francesca. “Beyond State-to-State: State Consent to International Jurisdiction in Disputes with Private Parties.” PhD thesis, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, 2026.
Access: An abstract of the PhD thesis is available in the Geneva Graduate Institute’s repository. As the thesis itself is embargoed until May 2029, please contact Dr Dal Poggetto for access.

Banner image: photo by Chokniti-Studio/Shutterstock.
Interview by Nathalie Tanner, Research Office.