Speakers

Prof. Nassib G. Ziadé

Nassib G. Ziadé is president of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Administrative Tribunal, president of the United Nations Appeals Tribunal and a member of the Sanctions Panel of the Geneva-based Global Fund. He has, or currently serves as tribunal chair or co-arbitrator in arbitrations relating to international investment and public international law, as well as international commerce (including oil and gas; energy; pharmaceuticals; construction, engineering, and infrastructure; real estate; taxation; media and broadcasting) conducted under the rules of the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the London Court of international Arbitration (LCIA), the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) (Convention and Additional Facility), the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), the Cairo Regional Centre for International Commercial Arbitration (CRCICA), the Dubai International Arbitration Centre (DIAC), the Abu Dhabi Commercial Conciliation and Arbitration Center (ADCCAC) and the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC), as well as in ad hoc proceedings, including under the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Arbitration Rules. His role in arbitration proceedings is by choice confined to that of arbitrator; he refrains from acting as counsel or expert.

His specialisms include private and public international law, international arbitration, international investment law, international administrative law and the law of conflicts of interest. He is fluent in Arabic, English and French, and he has a working knowledge of Spanish.

He has extensive senior managerial experience in administering international legal proceedings and developing international tribunals. From October 2013 to November 2023, he served as chief executive officer of the Bahrain Chamber for Dispute Resolution, and from July 2011 to August 2013 as director of DIAC. Between 2007 and 2011, he was deputy secretary-general of ICSID, where he also served as acting secretary-general between April 2008 and June 2009. From 1997 to 2007, he served as executive secretary to the World Bank Administrative Tribunal.

Nassib G. Ziadé has been designated as a member of the PCA and the ICSID panels of arbitrators and conciliators. In addition, he is a vice-chairman of the board of trustees and a former vice-chairman of the advisory committee of CRCICA, a member of the board of trustees of the Lebanese Arbitration and Mediation Center and the international advisory committee of the International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR/AAA), as well as a former court member of LCIA. He is a former vice-president of the International Federation of Commercial Arbitration Institutions (IFCAI). From 2018 to 2023, he led the Bahraini delegation to UNCITRAL Working Group II. From 2018 to 2022, he led the Bahraini delegation to Working Group III, and in 2023 he led the Lebanese delegation to this Working Group.

He is a visiting professor at the University of Miami School of Law and at the Law Faculty of Saint-Joseph University in Lebanon and Dubai. He also serves on the executive committee of Saint-Joseph University in Dubai. He has taught at the University of Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne), the Universities of Chile and Heidelberg in Santiago, Chile and the Paris International Academy for Arbitration Law. In 2012, he gave a course at the Hague Academy of International Law on “The Independence of Arbitral Bodies Established in the Framework of International Organisations”. He was elected in 2023 as an associate member of the Institut de droit international.

He has published extensively in the fields of international law and arbitration law and is a frequent speaker at international conferences. He is the founder and general editor of the BCDR International Arbitration Review and serves on the advisory board of the Journal of International Arbitration, the International Journal of Arab Arbitration and Proche-Orient Études juridiques. He previously served as editor-in-chief of the ICSID Review – Foreign Investment Law Journal, a member of the editorial advisory committee of International Legal Materials, a counsellor and member of the executive committee of the American Society of International Law, and as a member of the advisory committee of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law at the University of Cambridge.