Professor Franco Ferrari gives a talk at a conference co-hosted by the Institute for Transnational Arbitration and the American Society of International Law

On April 6, 2022, Professor Franco Ferrari, the Center’s Director, will give a talk on the occasion of a conference co-hosted by the Institute for Transnational Arbitration (ITA) and the American Society of International Law (ASIL) to take place in hybrid mode in Washington. The conference, dedicated to “Arbitration in Changed Circumstances”, will be divided into two panels, preceded by a keynote address by Ms. Lucy F. Reed entitled “Arbitration as a Cornerstone for Democracy and the Rule of Law”.

The panel in which Professor Ferrari will participate will focus specifically on how arbitration is adapting to the Covidー19 pandemic as well as shifts in geo-political and geo-economic power, the reassertion of sovereignty in international investment law, and an emerging proliferation of institutional competitors to arbitration. Professor Ferrari will share the panel with Professor Kun Fan from the University of New South Wales, who will introduce and act as the moderator, Professor Pamela Bookman (from Fordham University School of Law), Ms. Meg Kinnear, the Secretary-General of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), Ms. Natalie Y. Morris-Sharma, a government legal counsel at the Attorney-General’s Chambers of Singapore, and Professor August Reinisch (from the University of Vienna).

In his talk, Professor Ferrari will focus on the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on arbitration and suggest that, even though the importance of the pandemic on arbitration cannot be denied, for very many obvious reasons, the pandemic was not really the original trigger of some of the changes which have occurred over the last two years, but rather a catalyst. The pandemic has accelerated a movement that goes further back, but it has not itself triggered the changes.

To register for this event, please visit the ITA-ASIL Conference website.