Moving Beyond Diversity Toward Inclusion in International Arbitration

Abstract

THE INCREASING FOCUS ON DIVERSITY IN INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION

Where it used to be argued that there was an international arbitration “mafia” cornering the market in dispute resolution work, it is now recognized that the reality is much more nuanced. Rather than a “mafia,” in fact the international arbitration community is a small community working in a young and developing field. It is important to recall that the New York Convention, once memorably described as the “single most important pillar on which the edifice of international arbitration rests,” only celebrated its sixtieth birthday earlier this year. Of course, the New York Convention was not born with the 159 signatories it has today. Ten years after the New York Convention was concluded, only 32 countries had ratified it, and it was not until the late 1980s that critical mass was starting to be attained. The first edition of the seminal work on international arbitration by Redfern and Hunter was published in 1986 and by the beginning of the 2000s there were only around 40 completed International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) arbitrations.