International and Commercial Investment Arbitration in the Middle East and Africa: Topical Themes and Key Issues

International Commercial and Investment Arbitration in the Middle East and Africa is the first English-language work to examine the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) arbitration developments in the fifteen years since this seismic sociopolitical shift highlights the rise of new and strengthened arbitration institutions, the accelerated growth of some Arab cities to become regional and global arbitration hubs, the region’s growing diversity, the evolving expectation of the arbitration community, and the key risks and benefits of this evolution and its implications for the future of arbitration in the region and beyond. This landmark publication captures, in practical and academic context, the forces that drove that evolution and reshaped arbitration in the MENA region.

The book's insight is simple and powerful: arbitration in the MENA region has a clear before and after the Arab Spring of 2011. With explosive development over the last fifteen years, MENA seats have achieved in a bit more than a decade what took other jurisdictions much longer to achieve.

What’s in this book:

Over twenty leading practitioners and scholars, among the chief architects of the regional arbitral transformation, address the most pressing issues in international commercial and investment arbitration across the Middle East and Africa, including:

• the dramatic surge in disputes and claims value driving the emergence of a distinctive ‘hub culture’ in the region
• Cairo’s historic supremacy in regional arbitration and its continuing relevance
• the generational shift reshaping private practice: from the rise of young boutique law firms to near gender parity in key institutional appointments
• the pro-arbitration stance of MENA judiciaries
• the sharp increase in investor-state arbitrations in the region
• the evolving interplay between Islamic Sharia, the evolution of public policy, and international arbitration standards, and
• the evolution of public policy and enforcement practices in MENA arbitration

In addition to in-depth country-style reports, the work features a dedicated chapter on the UAE’s free zone arbitration and an empirical study on investment arbitration in the Middle East generally. It also includes an empirical study of investment arbitration across the Middle East with dedicated chapters on investment arbitration in Iraq and in African countries and the analysis of numerous cases and arbitral awards.

How this will help you:

This book does more than document a transformation; it equips you to navigate it and to benefit from it.

Among the main achievements of the book is its convincing presentation of today’s MENA region as a model for pro-arbitration reforms and transitions. Showing how the region has moved decisively toward a more international and arbitration-friendly approach, with courts increasingly aligning their practices with global standards, this invaluable book positions the region as one of great promise for parties choosing arbitration or drafting arbitration clauses. For practitioners, it provides hard-won practical guidance on how states, investors, counsel, arbitrators and institutions can navigate the rapidly evolving MENA terrain.

For businesses, it positions the MENA region as a model for pro-arbitration reforms and a region of great promise for parties choosing arbitration. For policymakers and institutions, it distils strategic blueprints for improvement and growth of seats and arbitration centres. For academics, it offers rich, evidence-based study of how political upheaval and legal modernization are combined to create an arbitration culture with lessons that transcend the region.