First ICC Mexican Arbitration Day: Opening Speech in Honor of Guillermo Aguilar Alvarez

Cecilia Azar

Dear Memo,

Today is 7 September 2017 and we are all gathered in what will become the first edition of the Mexican Arbitration Day organized by the ICC. What is unusual, and why I dare to convene you, is that we decided to dedicate this event to you.

I would like you to know that I was entrusted with the undeserving honor of preparing your curricular profile and, for that, I thought it would be a good idea to write this letter, maybe due to the need to chat with you for a while, or maybe, to tell you things I wish you knew or, as the character in Cortazar’s ‘Letter to a young lady in Paris’ would say, maybe because it rains.

You would probably like me to start by saying that you belong to a large family, composed of brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, all with the characteristic stamp of the Aguilar Álvarez, and united by the great love and example of your mother. I want you to know that your sister Becky is here with us. You married Andrea, known by all as Andy, and you had two children, Claudio and Patricio, who while they have lived in the United Stated for years, still enjoy and love their native country following your example.

You went to law school at the Law Faculty of Ciudad Universitaria from 1978 to 1983, how could you not? After all, you are before anything a Puma.

After working in Mexico with Mr Jorge Barrera Graf and being a researcher at the Institute of Legal Research of the UNAM, in 1984, you moved to France. Your experience in arbitration began there, as counsel at the International Court of Arbitration of the ICC in 1985, a position which you would occupy until 1990. You grew fond of commercial arbitration, so much so that you became an icon and international reference in the subject. Nothing you ever did was done halfway, Memo; if there was anything to do, it had to be done right.

When the negotiation rounds for the NAFTA began, in 1990, Carlos Salinas de Gortari and Jaime Sierra Puche called you to represent Mexico as General Counsel and particularly, to entrust you with the design of the chapters relating to dispute resolution, not only of this treaty, but also to the G3, the agreement with Bolivia, and the agreement with Costa Rica. Your Canadian and North American counterparts still remember the precision of your interventions, your sharp vision, your skill in negotiations and your perfect drafting. You always seemed very French to me in those skills… An anecdote is often told of when you drafted the first versions of chapters XI, XIX and XX of the Agreement and sent them to your colleagues in Canada and the United States for comments, the number of notes in your text was minimum. It is also told that during the first public event in Washington DC with representatives of the three negotiating groups, when each representative started speaking, the audience wondered ‘which one is the Mexican? Maybe he did not come?’ because you spoke with no accent. The same thing occurred when you spoke in French.

This is how you spent four years in the then-called SECOFI, where you met many people who would later become your partners and friends. Once the agreement came into force, you decided to open your law firm with Luis Alberto Aziz, in Paseo de la Reforma 935, a beautiful Mexican house (obviously) with a spectacular lobby and stables for the interns. This is where you hired me in January 1995 and asked me as my first task to prepare a power point presentation on the NAFTA in French. I knew French, I kind of knew about the NAFTA, but I did not know how to use Power Point. It is pointless to mention the number of times I had to rewrite the same slide and the incidents that I went through, which took me home that day thinking that my first job would last half a week; you gave me a second chance… The third chance was when you found out that, contrary to what you thought, I support the America, and not the Pumas… that time you almost terminated my contract…

In 1996, Aguilar Álvarez y Asociados became SAI Consultores and since then you began visualizing what would become a year later the Arbitration Center of Mexico (CAM), institution that this past summer, days before your disappearance (though only physical) turned 20 years old. There you associated with former Supreme Court judges and renowned academics and printed your stamp ever more strongly in what today is a reliable and solid national arbitration institution.

In 2005, you decided to move with your family to New York. You started an academic experience at Yale Law School, and several North-American law firms, quick as a wink, invited you to become part of their team. For a few years you worked at Weil, Gotshal & Manges and then at King & Spalding. This only came to confirm what we knew: you were one of the most remarkable arbitrators in the international scene. We would proudly lift our chin – we still do and I am sure we always will – whenever we heard people say that Guillermo Aguilar Álvarez was Mexican.

A few years ago you started a tough battle, the toughest for you and your loved ones. Despite that, you always kept your humor, your commitment to work, your mental clarity as one of the best lawyers this country has given to the world. You would reply to your emails with monosyllables, but you never stopped replying.

Lastly, Memo, I would like to tell you that, last week, an event in your honor was organized by the CIDE, and in it, Jaime Serra handed to Ildefonso Guajardo, the Secretary of Economy, what would become the Mexican delegation’s proposal for the anticorruption chapter in the new version of the NAFTA, text which once again emerged from your own pen. I bet that your words will once more become valid law for us Mexicans.

Those of us who had the opportunity to know you and to work with you will hold the memory of the daily challenge, of the tough questioning, of the quality above everything. We must honor this way of yours of practicing law with high and strict standards, of placing family and friends above all and of always looking at the best part of our Mexico. Keep on watching us and sending us your messages, Memo, since we have a tough job to do in keeping your example.

For now, I say goodbye – to you and to this audience who has kindly listened to these heartfelt words – by quoting the expression that Jan Paulsson recently shared with GAR:

Guillermo was ‘the perfect gentleman and friend, exquisitely cultivated without the slightest pretension, humorous but never at anyone’s expense, always actively concerned for others but never intruding. I could wish for nothing more than that my son grows up to be like Guillermo’.

See you soon, Memo.