The Commonwealth study into international commercial arbitration provides the rare opportunity to assess the state of international arbitration, ie its challenges and its promises, in a unique ecosystem. This unique ecosystem enjoys distinctive advantages courtesy of the shared Commonwealth heritage of its members, historical trade ties, familiar administrative and legal systems, and the use of predominantly one language as a means of communication. To harness that distinctive advantage, as it pertains to trade, now and in the future, Commonwealth countries need to ensure a continuous increase in trade and development and resilience against global economic crises. And that rests inter alia on two important pillars: foreign direct investment and the cross-border trade of a country's own businesses. Regarding the latter it is in particular the SMEs that need to participate in the intra- Commonwealth and global trade to drive economic growth.
The two panels will discuss whether the Commonwealth' international commercial arbitration framework is currently building on those advantages and how the Commonwealth and its members can better use international commercial arbitration to build a prosperous future.