Dyalá Jiménez; Julien Fouret

We start this third issue of 2017 with a section devoted to a dear member of our community, Guillermo Aguilar Alvarez, who passed a few months ago. We celebrate his life and his contribution to international arbitration in the words of President Alexis Mourre and Cecilia Azar (ICC Mexico). He will always remain an important part of the ICC family.

As highlighted in our first issue of this year, we aim at covering international arbitration developments in every corner of the globe in our Global Developments section. This time, we bring news regarding the enactment of a new arbitration law in Ontario, Canada and a court decision on the enforcement of an award in the United States, as well as two recent cases from Chile and Colombia dealing with arbitrator performance. As regards Europe, an author reports on the Dresser Rand case in France; another reporter shares opinions regarding a Swiss decision related to an interim award in the so-called ‘Yukos saga’, while a third commentator offers views on the requirements for the enforcement of awards against foreign States in Cyprus. This subject is also reviewed through a note regarding a Singaporean court decision.

In the Commentary section, we include an analysis of the role that experts can play as adjudicators and what should be taken into account in this regard. Secondly, we are including the inspiring speech of the Hon Michael Kirby AC CMG at the ICC Commission on Arbitration and ADR meeting in Sydney last October. We are grateful for his authorization to do so.

This section is then followed by an in-depth study of the evolution of female participation in the institution in our ICC Practice and Procedure section.

In the following ICC Activities section, the ICC’s Young Arbitrators Forum, YAF, contributed with six regional reports of the ‘Around the World in 80-ish Minutes’ series held in June of this year at the Global YAF Conference. We wish to thank Soeun Nikole Lee's invaluable help for the reports to be an important part of this issue. As she has mentioned, 'the Global YAF conference was a success with approximately 200 participants from 44 countries and reaffirmed the increasing enthusiasm of the young international arbitration practitioner community'. Indeed, we should highlight that ICC’s YAF has grown to include 61 regional representatives who help design dynamic discussions of hot topics in international arbitration in their corresponding regions.1 These events are increasingly a ‘must’ for young and younger practitioners and the Bulletin will regularly report on their most important events worldwide.

As mentioned in his welcome message, Alexis Mourre met with Chinese government and judicial authorities as part of the Belt and Road Initiative in September, which meetings are also reported in this issue. Another activity that is covered in this section is the first Mexican ICC Arbitration Day, dedicated to Guillermo Aguilar Alvarez.

Our last section on Book Reviews includes a review of Gilles Cuniberti’s book ‘International Commercial Arbitration: Towards Default Arbitration’. Will consent soon be a requirement of the past in international arbitration cases? Read on…

We also want to share with you a bit of news from ‘behind the scenes’: this third issue has been possible thanks to the invaluable work of our new Publications manager for ICC Dispute Resolution Services, Stéphanie Torkomyan, who nimbly stepped into Virginia Hamilton’s shoes last September, as well as Claire Héraud’s consistent work for 18 years at ICC. We give a warm welcome to Stéphanie on behalf of the entire Editorial Board, whose members also devote precious time to our Bulletin. Authors who wish to contribute to the ICC Dispute Resolution Bulletin are welcome to send their article to members of the Editorial Board or to stephanie.torkomyan@iccwbo.org.

As always, of course, we are grateful to our contributors for the efforts displayed in the preparation of their submissions as well as for the relentless work of our Editorial Board members.

Finally, a word of thanks to Virginia Hamilton, a devoted perfectionist whose imprint is found in the millions of words published in ICC documents throughout the last 17 years.

1
https://iccwbo.org/media-wall/news-speeches/icc-announces-new-young-arbitrators-forum-regional-representatives/