Seychelles to host international arbitration workshop |09 August 2013

The Supreme Court, in cooperation with the Bar Association of Seychelles, will tomorrow host the Seychelles “New York Convention Road Show”, an international arbitration workshop presented by the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) and the International Council for Commercial Arbitration (ICCA).

Serving and retired judicial officers, attorneys, representatives of the Chamber of Commerce and Fair Trading Commission, and law students and recent graduates have been invited to attend.

The workshop will open with a general introduction to international arbitration, followed by presentations and discussions on such topics as arbitral institutions, the arbitration agreement, investment arbitration, the role of national courts, and more.

The second half of the workshop will focus on the New York Convention and will feature an interactive review of case law in Seychelles as well as a time for questions and answers.  

The event will be led by visiting expert Judge Dominique Hascher, who is Judge at the French Cour de cassation and a member of the ICCA Governing Board. Judge Hascher is an Adjunct Professor of Law at University Panthéon-Sorbonne. Previously, he served as General Counsel and Deputy-Secretary General at the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce. He is an Honorary Bencher of Gray’s Inn in London. Judge Hascher has also been a visiting professor at the University of Texas School of Law.  

Judge Hascher will be joined by Fedelma C. Smith, who is Legal Counsel at the PCA and currently serves as the PCA Representative in Mauritius.  Ms Smith is a member of the Bar of England and Wales, and a former associate legal officer of the International Court of Justice.

The International Council for Commercial Arbitration (ICCA) is a worldwide organisation devoted to promoting the use and improving the processes of arbitration, conciliation and other forms of resolving international commercial disputes.

Its activities include convening international arbitration congresses and conferences, sponsoring authoritative dispute resolution publications (including the Yearbook Commercial Arbitration, the International Handbook on Commercial Arbitration, and the ICCA Congress Series), and promoting the harmonisation of arbitration and conciliation rules, laws, procedures and standards.

The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) is an intergovernmental organisation with 115 member states. Established by treaty in 1899 to facilitate arbitration and other forms of dispute resolution between states, the PCA provides services for the resolution of disputes involving various combinations of states, state entities, intergovernmental organisations, and private parties, by arbitration, conciliation, or fact-finding commissions of inquiry.  

The PCA’s secretariat, the International Bureau, provides full registry services to tribunals and commissions. Its caseload encompasses territorial, treaty, and human rights disputes between states, as well as investment disputes, including disputes arising under bilateral and multilateral investment treaties. The PCA is seated at The Hague, and has an office in Mauritius pursuant to a host country agreement with Mauritius concluded in 2009.