The Singapore International Arbitration Forum 2013 will be held on 2 December 2013 at Gardens by the Bay, in conjunction with the Singapore International Arbitration Academy 2013 (see our post here).

The Forum has been titled “Adventures with Blank Sheets of Paper: A Day of “Blue Sky” Experimental Thinking on the Structure and Practice of International Arbitration“.

The aim of the Forum is to stimulate discussion and “true ‘blue sky’ and experimental thinking, and to explore the widest possible range of procedural possibilities” in both international commercial arbitration and investor-State arbitration. It is a bid to engineer “a major break in this cycle“, a cycle which involves “a standardised, formulaic international arbitration conference programme…which tends to generate set-piece interventions, and no more than minor suggested tweaks to the existing system“.

The Forum will proceed in a most interesting fashion:

i. a “blank piece of paper” will be completed by a range of experts in both international commercial and investor-State arbitration, each of whom has been asked to start entirely afresh; to apply all creative skills; and to reconsider each component of the process, unhindered by any preconceptions;

ii. the results will be discussed by established practitioners in each field; and

iii. the range of resulting proposals will then be placed before a panel of national Court judges to assess by reference to prevailing standards (including the New York Convention; Washington Convention; and local notions of due process and public policy).

We look forward to the Forum which boasts an absolutely stellar line-up of speakers, including past and present members of the bench, prominent Queen’s Counsel and senior practitioners. Click here for more details and a copy of the flyer.