Wrapping up the 100th year of the ICC International Court of Arbitration, we are looking back at 2023. From the 28,000th case milestone to the publication of our Guide on Effective Conflict Management, we are highlighting 10 key achievements from our dispute resolution year.
- Looking to the next 100 years of service, leadership, and engagement, we reaffirmed our commitment to promote access to justice and the rule of law to make business work for everyone, every day, everywhere. We unveiled the ICC Centenary Declaration on Dispute Prevention and Resolution setting out our vision to shape dispute resolution and prevention for the next century.
- We registered the 28,000th case under the ICC Arbitration Rules, marking a significant milestone in our centenary year. The filing of the 28,000th case demonstrates the trust parties, across industries and regions, have in ICC to resolve their commercial disputes.
- As part of the ICC Court Centenary Programme we launched a new series of ICC Advanced Arbitration Academies to support the next generation of arbitrators. More than 160 arbitration professionals were accepted into the four Academies in Asia, Eastern Europe, and North and Latin America. The programme continues in 2024 with two new academies in Africa and the Middle East.
The Centenary programme also included a global tour of our flagship regional and local events, highlighting our commitment to strengthening regional and local arbitral ecosystems. Throughout our centenary year, we held close to 1,000 events, including conferences, trainings, and other educational activities. Attendance at our flagship conferences broke records with over 2,600 in-person participants.
ICC Dispute Resolution Services featured in more than 70 news articles in 2023, in international and local business and legal media. Articles covered the ICC Court Centenary as well as ICC thought leadership, diversity initiatives and arbitration developments.
- Continuing to drive thought leadership, we released the ICC Commission on Arbitration and ADR’s report and guide to increase awareness of different alternative dispute resolution techniques and how to facilitate the settlement of disputes in international arbitration. Our Guide on Effective Conflict Management offers guidance in selecting the most appropriate ADR technique and explains how to efficiently use them to avoid escalation, resolve disputes and reduce the cost of unavoidable disputes, before and after the commencement of arbitration proceedings. The Report on Facilitating Settlement in International Arbitration proposes ways for parties to settle disputes even if arbitration has already begun, thereby preserving business relationships.
Paving the way for more disability inclusion initiatives in international arbitration and ADR, the ICC Commission on Arbitration and ADR also released a Guide on Disability Inclusion in International Arbitration and ADR. The ground-breaking publication, developed by the ICC Commission on Arbitration and ADR, provides actionable guidance to practitioners, arbitrators, arbitral institutions and associations. It aims to drive disability inclusion within the field of dispute resolution by providing specific recommendations and checklists along with other practical tools.
- Building on our cutting-edge work on diversity, equity and inclusion in all aspects of dispute prevention and resolution, we opened the ICC LGBTQIA+ network to anyone in the dispute resolution and prevention community.
- The ICC Arbitration Rules were selected for the biggest arbitration educational event of the year, the 31st Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot which gathers over 350 teams from across the world. The ICC Rules apply in the 2023-2024 edition’s problem, arising from a cybersecurity controversy. As with every edition of the Moot, oral rounds will be held in Hong Kong and Vienna next spring.
- We contributed to the understanding and progress of international business law around the world, enhancing ties between the academic world and practising lawyers and continued recognising legal writing excellence. The ICC Institute of World Business Law awarded its bi-annual Prize to Sabrina Pearson-Wenger for her thesis “Good Faith in International Commercial Arbitration: its Application by Arbitral Tribunals to the Parties’ Contract and the Arbitration Agreement”.
A new ICC Institute Advanced Training on Documentary Evidence drew 70 participants during the ICC Miami Conference on International Arbitration in November. The training was organised in other cities around the world as well, beginning with an inaugural training in Delhi, India.
- Leading the technological transformation of dispute prevention and resolution we partnered with legal technology specialist Opus 2 to deliver a pioneering case management system. The platform development follows the 2022 launch of ICC Case Connect, a first-phase ICC case management platform connecting parties, arbitral tribunals, and the ICC Secretariat.
- Improving transparency in the dispute prevention and resolution process, we began offering free access to arbitral awards and select case documents compliant with the Brazilian Arbitration Act through the ICC Dispute Resolution Library, in partnership with Jus Mundi. ICC is now providing access to dispute resolution content on Brazilian States and State Entities. Free access is now provided to main submissions (excluding attachments and internal documents drawn up by the ICC Court and the ICC Secretariat), Terms of Reference, procedural orders, and awards in arbitrations involving Brazilian States and State Entities, administrated by the São Paulo office of the ICC Court Secretariat.
The ICC Dispute Resolution Library reached 27,000 active users, with the United States recording the highest user activity over the past year.
- We continued building and harnessing the power of our young practitioners’ network both offline and online, with global community and local engagement projects to increase the reach of arbitration and ADR. Through an intense engagement programme, our ICC Young Arbitration and ADR Forum (YAAF) grew from 27,000 to over 37,000 members in 2023, while over 110 YAAF events took place worldwide.
