Ian Laird

Ian A. Laird is a Partner at Crowell & Moring LLP in Washington, D.C., and is a leading practitioner in international investment and commercial arbitration, with more than 25 years of cross-border experience at the intersection of energy policy, regulatory risk, and investor-state dispute resolution. He has worked extensively with clients on issues in the energy and natural resources sector — including power generation, oil and gas, and mining — and brings legal and political insight drawn from his service as a former chief of staff to a Canadian federal cabinet minister and as a senior political aide to the Ontario Minister of Energy. Ian currently serves as lead counsel for the Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission in its NAFTA legacy claim against the U.S. Government, seeking damages of at least $1.5 billion CAD for lost investment arising from the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline. He has counseled parties in investment arbitrations under NAFTA, the USMCA, the Energy Charter Treaty, DR-CAFTA, and other international investment agreements, and serves as an arbitrator in investor-state and commercial arbitration proceedings under ICSID and UNCITRAL rules. Ian has also contributed to the academic development of the field as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center — where he has taught an advanced LL.M. seminar on investment treaty arbitration and public international law since 2013 — and as a former Lecturer-in-Law at Columbia Law School. He is recognized in the 2026 editions of Best Lawyers in America and the Chambers Global and USA Guides for International Arbitration.