Profile

Research Assistant Professor

Julián Cárdenas García is a Venezuelan attorney and Doctoral Fellow at the Research Center on Investment and International Trade Law (CREDIMI) at the University of Bourgogne, Dijon, France. Prior to this position, he served as career diplomat at the Venezuelan Ministry of Foreign Affairs working multilateral affairs with the Organization of the American States (OAS) and the United Nations (U.N.) and bilateral affairs on sovereign boundary issues.

Currently, he is a Visiting Professor of Law at the Environment, Energy and Natural Resources Center of the University of Houston Law Center where he teaches Transnational Petroleum Law, Diplomacy and Geopolitics of Oil and Gas and Transnational Investment Law and Arbitration. As a visiting professor, he has taught the same courses at the Rio de Janeiro State University (UERJ) in Brazil, the University of Nuevo Leon (UANL) in Monterrey, Mexico and the University Externado, in Bogota, Colombia.

Professor Cardenas has been retained as an expert on Venezuelan law in international arbitrations regarding the upstream petroleum sector in Venezuela. He has also been involved in ICC, AAA and ICSID arbitration cases concerning downstream petroleum transactions, direct foreign investments, and international construction projects. He is a frequent speaker on oil and gas investment matters, best practices in the petroleum industry, and geopolitics of the oil and gas industry invited by oil and gas service companies, operators and government agencies. He has been a guest speaker in conferences on energy law in the U.S., Canada, France, Scotland, the Netherlands, Mexico, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela. He works effectively in Spanish, French and English, and has some working proficiency on Portuguese.

He holds a law degree and a B.A. in International Relations from the Universidad Central de Venezuela, a Master of Laws in Arbitration from the Sorbonne University - Paris II Pantheon-Assas, and a LL.M. with a Certificate in Energy, Environment & Natural Resources Law from the University of Houston Law Center.

Professor Cárdenas is a violinist who has played with different symphony orchestras in Venezuela, France and the U.S. He has performed at the Berlin Philharmonie, the Carnegie Hall, and the Sorbonne Amphitheatre, among other venues.