Dubai Arbitration Week 2026, being held from 9 to 13 November 2026, has brought together arbitration practitioners, experts, thought leaders and institutions from across the world for a week of discussions, knowledge-sharing and networking. Since its inception in 2011, Dubai Arbitration Week has developed into a prominent international gathering on the arbitration calendar, providing a platform to deliberate on emerging challenges, innovations and developments shaping modern arbitration practice.
Reflecting Dubai’s identity as Al Wasl, meaning “the connection” in Arabic, the week-long event continues to bring together professionals and institutions across geographical and cultural boundaries, reinforcing Dubai’s growing influence as an international dispute resolution hub.
As part of Dubai Arbitration Week 2026, the Dubai International Arbitration Centre (DIAC) hosted its Annual Conference, bringing together members of the international arbitration community to reflect on institutional developments, the challenges posed by geopolitical uncertainty and the evolving role of arbitration in promoting stability and peaceful dispute resolution.
The conference commenced with opening remarks by Mr. Robert Stephen, Registrar, DIAC, followed by a keynote address by Mr. Constantine Partasides KC, Founding Partner, Three Crowns LLP, London. While Mr. Stephen discussed DIAC’s institutional progress and the importance of resilience in an uncertain geopolitical environment, Mr. Partasides examined arbitration’s potential contribution to peacebuilding, drawing on historical examples and the Brčko arbitration arising from the Dayton Peace Accords that ended the Bosnian War.
Mr. Robert Stephen underscores DIAC’s institutional resilience and global standing
Delivering the opening remarks, Mr. Robert Stephen welcomed arbitration practitioners, arbitrators, counsel, academics and business leaders from across the international dispute resolution community. He described the conference as an opportunity to reflect on DIAC’s institutional progress, acknowledge the contributions of its stakeholders and consider the challenges and opportunities facing international arbitration.
Addressing the prevailing geopolitical circumstances, Mr. Stephen noted that conflicts and international divisions had created uncertainty for businesses, institutions and communities, testing their ability to adapt and maintain confidence in established systems.
He emphasised that institutional resilience did not merely mean continuing operations despite external challenges, but required institutions to adapt, support their users and maintain the standards of independence, integrity and professionalism upon which confidence in international arbitration depended.
In this regard, he observed:
“It means remaining focused on our responsibilities, adapting where necessary, supporting our users, and maintaining the standards on which confidence in an international arbitral institution depends.”
Highlighting Dubai’s international outlook, openness and commitment to global connectivity, Mr. Stephen reaffirmed DIAC’s determination to sustain the confidence placed in Dubai by the international business and arbitration communities.
DIAC records 313 cases in 2025, with disputes valued at AED 13.9 billion
Mr. Stephen referred to the Centre’s recently published statistics, which demonstrated its sustained growth and the continued confidence of parties in DIAC as an arbitral institution.
In 2025, DIAC registered 313 cases, including 281 arbitrations, marking the fourth consecutive year in which the Centre administered more than 250 arbitrations. The aggregate value of disputes registered during the year reached AED 13.9 billion, representing a substantial increase over the previous year.
Mr. Stephen noted that the positive momentum had continued into 2026, with the Centre recording encouraging results in each quarter of the year.
He also highlighted DIAC’s international recognition in the 2025 International Arbitration Survey conducted by Queen Mary University of London in partnership with White & Case. According to the survey results cited in his remarks, DIAC’s arbitration rules ranked among the 15 most preferred sets of arbitration rules globally and fourth among respondents in the Middle East.
DIAC was also identified as the only arbitral institution from the Middle East, Africa and South Asia region to feature in both rankings.
Further, Mr. Stephen referred to DIAC’s inclusion in the GAR Guide to Regional Arbitration as one of three whitelist institutions for the Middle East and Africa, and the only institution from the United Arab Emirates.
While acknowledging these achievements, Mr. Stephen cautioned against measuring institutional reputation solely through statistics and international recognition. He observed:
“Institutional reputation is not built through announcements or statistics alone. It’s earned case by case.”
He emphasised that institutional credibility was ultimately earned through the quality of case administration, fairness and efficiency of proceedings, and the confidence parties placed in the institution’s processes and professionals.
He also expressed appreciation for DIAC’s users, arbitrators, mediators, other ADR professionals, Board of Directors, Advisory Committee, Arbitration Court and institutional team for their contributions to the Centre’s continued development.
Arbitration’s wider role in promoting stability and international cooperation
Turning to the broader significance of arbitration, Mr. Stephen observed that its contribution extended beyond determining legal rights and liabilities. By offering a neutral, independent and structured mechanism for resolving disputes, arbitration helped preserve commercial relationships, facilitate investment, and strengthen international cooperation.
Against the backdrop of increasing geopolitical tensions, Mr. Stephen observed that arbitration could not, by itself, resolve all geopolitical conflicts. However, he emphasised that it could provide an important means of ensuring that disagreements between parties did not become an additional source of instability. He noted that arbitration upheld the principle that disputes could be addressed through law, reasoned decision-making and peaceful processes, even in difficult circumstances.
Setting the stage for the keynote address, Mr. Stephen invited Mr. Constantine Partasides KC to examine the wider purpose of international arbitration and its potential contribution to peace.
Mr. Constantine Partasides KC explores arbitration’s role in peacebuilding
In his keynote address, Mr. Constantine Partasides KC examined the role arbitration could play in addressing disputes arising from armed conflicts and contributing to lasting peace.
Referring to the spread of armed conflicts and the emergence of autonomous military technologies, including autonomous drones and AI-piloted fighter jets and submarines, Mr. Partasides questioned what contribution arbitration practitioners, and the arbitral process could make in an increasingly unstable geopolitical environment.
He acknowledged that armed conflicts generally originated from political disputes requiring political solutions and cautioned against treating arbitration as a universal remedy for such conflicts.
Emphasising the limitations of arbitration, Mr. Partasides observed:
“Arbitration is, of course, no single panacea.”
However, he argued that arbitration had historically played an important role in facilitating peace and could continue to serve as a valuable instrument within broader political settlement frameworks.
Tracing arbitration’s historical contribution to international peace, Mr. Partasides referred to the Jay Treaty of 1794 between the United States and Great Britain, which established arbitral commissions to resolve disputes concerning maritime claims and debts.
He also discussed the Treaty of Washington of 1871, which established a tribunal to address claims involving British-built Confederate warships.
Further, he referred to the 1899 and 1907 Hague Conventions for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, which promoted the peaceful resolution of international disputes before resorting to armed conflict and provided for the establishment of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague as a voluntary dispute resolution mechanism.
To demonstrate arbitration’s practical contribution to peacemaking, Mr. Partasides examined the Brčko arbitration, which formed part of the Dayton Peace Accords that ended the Bosnian War in 1995.
The Brčko Arbitration: Resolving a territorial deadlock through binding arbitration
Mr. Partasides explained that the Dayton Peace Accords envisaged a new constitutional structure for Bosnia and Herzegovina, comprising two constituent entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, predominantly comprising Bosniaks and Croats, and Republika Srpska, the Bosnian Serb entity.
Although the parties had broadly agreed upon the inter-entity boundary line, they remained deeply divided over the Brčko area, which held considerable demographic, historical and strategic significance.
Before the war, Brčko had been home to a predominantly Bosniak population. However, the region’s demographic composition changed substantially during the conflict following ethnic cleansing and forced displacement, which compelled most Bosniaks and Croats to flee, while Bosnian Serbs displaced from other areas resettled there.
For the Federation, the territory carried particular significance because of its pre-war population and the displacement that occurred during the conflict. For Republika Srpska, its geographical position was strategically important because it connected two otherwise separate parts of the entity, determining whether it would remain a contiguous territory.
With neither side willing to compromise, the dispute threatened to derail the Dayton negotiations in their closing stages.
Mr. Partasides explained that a solution emerged when the parties agreed to refer the unresolved territorial question to binding arbitration rather than insisting upon an immediate political settlement. He described this arrangement as a political pressure valve, allowing both sides to preserve their respective positions without making concessions during the peace negotiations.
This enabled the parties to proceed with the broader peace agreement while leaving the contentious territorial question to a binding adjudicative process.
The arbitration agreement provided for a three-member tribunal, with each entity appointing one arbitrator. The presiding arbitrator would be appointed by agreement between the two party-appointed arbitrators or, failing such agreement, by the President of the International Court of Justice.
A unique decision-making mechanism: Empowering the presiding arbitrator
Mr. Partasides highlighted a distinctive procedural feature of the Brčko arbitration agreement that proved crucial to its effectiveness.
Although the parties agreed to apply the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules, they modified the usual majority decision-making arrangement contemplated under Article 31.
Under their agreement, if the tribunal could not reach a majority decision, the decision of the presiding arbitrator acting alone would be final and binding.
Mr. Partasides explained that this modification was particularly important because the two party-appointed arbitrators reflected the respective ethnic affiliations of the entities that appointed them.
Given these affiliations, securing a majority could have required an outcome in which one party prevailed entirely over the other. The agreement empowering the presiding arbitrator to decide independently in the absence of a majority was therefore critical to avoiding an entirely adversarial outcome.
The importance of this arrangement became evident when the tribunal failed to reach a two-to-one majority on any of its three awards. Consequently, all three awards were rendered by the presiding arbitrator alone.
Balancing legal principles and equitable considerations to secure lasting peace
Another important feature of the Brčko arbitration was the tribunal’s authority to apply both legal and equitable principles.
Mr. Partasides explained that, in considering the legal issues, the tribunal relied upon the international law doctrine of non-recognition, according to which acts contrary to international law could not become a source of legal rights for the wrongdoer.
The tribunal therefore refused to allow the consequences of ethnic cleansing to create, by themselves, a legal fait accompli or a source of legal rights for a party benefiting from such unlawful acts.
Equally significant was the tribunal’s consideration of equitable principles. Mr. Partasides explained that the tribunal was required to consider not only the legal consequences of the conflict but also the potential impact of its decision on the existing population and the future peace and stability of the region.
Rather than adopting a zero-sum approach that would award the territory exclusively to one side, the tribunal sought a solution that could promote peaceful coexistence and avoid renewed hostilities.
In its final award, the tribunal determined that the Brčko District would be held in condominium by both entities, granting them simultaneous rights over the territory, while neither would exercise governmental authority within its boundaries.
Instead, a new district authority would administer the area as a single unitary government, without subdivisions along ethnic lines.
Mr. Partasides highlighted this outcome as an example of how arbitration could move beyond conventional adversarial outcomes and develop solutions responsive to the political and social realities underlying a dispute.
Ensuring Compliance: The tribunal’s continuing role
Mr. Partasides also examined the challenge of ensuring compliance with arbitral awards in politically sensitive disputes.
Recognising the limitations of an arbitral tribunal’s enforcement powers, the Brčko tribunal adopted measures intended to encourage the parties to comply with its decisions.
The tribunal provided that it would remain in existence until both entities had fully complied with their obligations. It also indicated that failure to comply would result in the non-complying party forfeiting its legal rights over the region.
The tribunal’s decision to remain constituted until compliance was achieved reflected an approach that extended its role beyond the rendering of the award. It retained an ongoing role linked to the parties’ implementation of their obligations.
Reflecting on the outcome nearly three decades later, Mr. Partasides observed that the arbitral solution had worked. The Brčko District recorded one of the highest rates of refugee returns in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Emphasising the significance of the settlement, he observed:
“the guns have stayed silent ever since.”
The territory, which had witnessed some of the gravest atrocities of the war and had been regarded as a potential flashpoint for renewed conflict following the Dayton negotiations, had evolved into one of the more stable and functionally integrated areas in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Arbitration as an instrument of peacebuilding
Concluding his keynote address, Mr. Partasides reiterated that armed conflicts were fundamentally political in nature and ultimately required political solutions. Nevertheless, the Brčko arbitration demonstrated how a carefully structured arbitral mechanism could help overcome political deadlocks, facilitate agreement and contribute to post-conflict stability.
In his concluding remarks, Mr. Partasides returned to the broader role of arbitration in peacebuilding, observing:
“perhaps it can serve as a valuable tool in the peacemaker’s toolkit at this time of need, as it has in the past.”
The opening and keynote addresses at DIAC’s Annual Conference brought into focus the complementary roles of arbitral institutions and tribunals in strengthening confidence in international dispute resolution. While DIAC’s institutional growth reflected the continued confidence of the international business and arbitration communities, the Brčko arbitration illustrated the potential of binding dispute resolution mechanisms to support broader political settlements and peaceful coexistence.
As Dubai Arbitration Week 2026 brings together the global arbitration community, the discussions reaffirm the importance of independent, effective and adaptable dispute resolution mechanisms in an increasingly complex geopolitical and commercial environment.
SCC Times is the Official Information & Documentation Partner for Dubai Arbitration Week 2026. Stay tuned for comprehensive coverage, key insights and highlights from the event!
