International Organizations and Effective Dispute Resolution

The 2019 Annual Meeting of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is inherently outward-looking. It’s an invaluable opportunity to inform the public about the Bank’s mission but is also an occasion to learn more from our diverse stakeholders.

Bringing the meeting to Europe—a continental laboratory of the rule of law, multilateralism and regional economic cooperation—is a moment to restate and reflect upon these same shared values that founded AIIB. And, launched each year at the Annual Meeting, the “AIIB Yearbook of International Law (AYIL)” is also anchored on this outlook. AYIL is produced by AIIB’s Office of the General Counsel and published by international academic publisher Brill Nijhoff. It responds to the premise that AIIB is an institution that applies, and so quests after, knowledge. And that this is done, not just through our own experiences, but by opening ourselves to critical discourse and debate.

This volume of AYIL is based on the second annual AIIB Legal Conference in September 2018—in the same way that our first volume, “Good Governance and Modern International Financial Institutions,” is based on our inaugural AIIB Legal Conference. Preeminent international lawyers from private practice, intergovernmental organizations, institutional arbitration venues and academia joined forces for two days at our Beijing headquarters. This gathering—merging academic scrutiny with practitioner expertise—is, perhaps, surprisingly unusual. It also affords AIIB’s Legal Conference a distinctive and distinguished reputation for authoritative inquiry that doesn’t duck the difficult issues. The subject of that second conference serves as the title of this newest volume, “International Organizations and the Promotion of Effective Dispute Resolution.”

The latest AYIL is divided into five parts to reflect a series of overarching themes and relationships. These include international arbitration’s effectiveness and affinity with multilateral institutions, international organizations as proponents of the norms of dispute resolution, the dispute resolution mandates of international organizations and the role of dispute resolution and economic development.

Notably, AYIL brings authors from leading international arbitration institutions to the debate: London Court of International Arbitration, Dubai International Finance Centre Courts, Singapore International Arbitration Centre, Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre and China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission. Likewise, major multilateral development organizations afford either a perspective or an object of study: the Asian Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, World Trade Organization and International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes.

Lastly, AYIL presents the 2018 AIIB Law Lecture given by Georg Nolte, Chair of the United Nations’ International Law Commission, on the subject of “International Organizations in the Recent Work of the International Law Commission.” Professor Nolte tracks the Commission’s work, from the broad-based but controversial, to more limited but consensual legal interventions. AYIL also publishes the 2018 AIIB Legal Conference Report.

Together, this diversity of perspectives offers convincing evidence that effective dispute resolution is a precondition to successful economic development—and that international organizations have an essential role to play in promoting both. As an editor, I also believe that the “AIIB Yearbook of International Law” proves the importance of AIIB staging, engaging and sharing the encounter of these perspectives.