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James Castello has advised and represented clients (and has arbitrated disputes) in a wide range of commercial and investor-state proceedings under multiple arbitral rules. Based in Europe for 22 of his 34 years in practice, James now serves as both counsel and arbitrator. According to Chambers Global, he is “praised by market commentators as an ‘absolutely open, thorough, fantastic lawyer,’” and is "highly praised by clients for his ‘extensive, in-depth experience’ in international arbitration."
James has represented European, Middle Eastern, African and Asian clients, especially in energy disputes (e.g., contested control of a refinery, privatization of a power plant, gas price readjustments, upstream development) and large infrastructure cases (road, tunnel, rail, industrial facilities). He and a K&S team recently won one of the largest ICSID awards ever - $2+ billion - against Egypt for curtailing long-term gas supply. According to International Who's Who of Commercial Arbitration, James "has a ‘great brain’ and is ‘one of the reasons [King & Spalding] is so good in Paris.’”
A member since 2001 of the U.S. delegation to the Arbitration Working Groups at UNCITRAL (the UN Commission on International Trade Law), James has actively participated in drafting or revising all of UNCITRAL's arbitration or mediation instruments. James has also written extensively on UNCITRAL's Arbitration Rules in books published by Oxford, Kluwer, and Juris.
Appointed in 2007 to the London Court of International Arbitration, James sat on its subcommittee that drafted the 2014 LCIA Rules and now serves on the LCIA's Board of Directors. He serves as well on the International Advisory Board of the Vienna International Arbitral Centre and as Executive Committee Vice Chair of the Institute for Transnational Arbitration.
From 1995 to 2001, James left private practice to serve in the Clinton administration, first as Deputy Counsel to the President at the White House and then as Associate Deputy Attorney General in the Justice Department, where his portfolio included such international issues as immigration and human rights.
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