New General Counsel for the Secretariat

Last July, after three years' service as General Counsel, Fabien Gélinas left the Court Secretariat to take up a position with a Canadian online dispute resolution service provider. He has been replaced by Emmanuel Jolivet.

Although new to arbitration, Mr Jolivet is no stranger to ICC. Prior to his new appointment, he spent two years in ICC's Department of Policy and Business Practices, first as Policy Assistant and latterly as Policy Manager of the division dealing with marketing, advertising, distribution and international commercial practice. In this capacity he coordinated the production of some key ICC publications relating to international trade, notably Incoterms 2000 and The ICC Model Occasional Intermediary Contract and The ICC Model Franchising Contract. He thus brings to dispute resolution the eye and experience of one well versed in business practices.

Mr Jolivet is a lawyer by training. He holds postgraduate qualifications in business law and commercial contracts, and his doctoral thesis on Incoterms won him an accolade from the University of Montpellier and is to be published.

Mr Jolivet's responsibilities as General Counsel include above all promotion of the Court's activities and ICC's other dispute resolution services, including DOCDEX and Expertise. This will cover all aspects of external relations, through various media - written, spoken and electronic. He will also act as Secretary to the ICC Commission on International Arbitration.

Corinne Truong, previously Assistant Counsel in one of the Secretariat's seven teams, has been appointed to Mr Jolivet's former position in ICC's Department of Policy and Business Practices. This is a timely appointment, as she recently completed her doctoral thesis dealing with an aspect of international commercial contracts in ICC arbitration. Readers will be able to benefit from the fruits of her research in the next issue of this Bulletin.

Web update

Last year's launch of the Court's newly styled Web site has been followed this year by a number of further developments in the field of electronic communication.

First amongst these are the previously announced French pages, now in place on the site. Wherever possible, visitors are offered a choice between ICC's two official languages.

Readers who regularly visit the Court's Web site may have noticed also a small but significant change in purchasing arrangements for the ICC International Court of Arbitration Bulletin. Now, all issues, including the current one, may be purchased individually. It is hoped this change will better cater to readers with specific needs who may wish to purchase the Bulletin on a selective basis. To help them make their choice, a summary of the contents of each issue has been posted on the site.

Greater use is now being made of the Court's Web site to announce news items of a necessarily transient nature, for which the biannual Bulletin is a less appropriate medium. These have included Secretariat appointments and changes in the Court's membership, work in progress by the ICC Commission on International Arbitration, information of general relevance to international commercial arbitration, and publications and forthcoming events.

To see these various changes for themselves readers may visit the Court'sWeb site at: http://www.iccarbitration.org

Web developments are serving not only to increase the Court's exposure to the world at large, but also to optimize management. An illustration is the 'WebBoard', soon to be put into practice for the benefit of certain activities of the Commission on International Arbitration. The WebBoard is based on the BBS (Bulletin Board System) concept, and has been designed as a virtual notice board to facilitate communication between participants in certain Commission activities. The system will enable participants, once registered, to post messages and exchange documents almost instantaneously. Such messages will be stored so that participants who join later can easily inform themselves of what has been previously discussed between the other participants. The WebBoard will be of obvious benefit to people who travel widely and frequently and who cannot necessarily be reached with the necessary speed using hardcopy documents. Added to which, there are significant ecological implications, not least a considerable saving of paper.