Organisation: Foreign and Commonwealth Office

An interstate arbitration that ended a decade ago over the UK's conduct in relation to the strategically important Chagos archipelago in the Indian Ocean was one of a series of events that led to last week's announcement that the UK will return the territory, its last remaining African colony, to Mauritius. 

10 October 2024

Paula Hodges KC is retiring as partner and head of global arbitration at Herbert Smith Freehills in London after 37 years at the firm – as Simon Chapman KC and Andrew Cannon take over as co-chairs of the practice. 

11 April 2024

Jonathan Gimblett and Tom Cusworth of Covington & Burling consider a recent UK Supreme Court ruling that service of enforcement proceedings on a foreign state through diplomatic channels cannot be dispensed with – arguing it has strengthened the hand of debtor states.

22 July 2021

The United Kingdom has named its latest designations to the ICSID panels of arbitrators and conciliators, after it held an open competition for those appointments for the first time.

11 November 2020

Covington & Burling partner Jonathan Gimblett and associate Tom Cusworth in London welcome a recent trend in English case law that has eased the service rules for enforcing awards against sovereign states.

26 October 2020

Four tribunals are in place at the Permanent Court of Arbitration to hear claims by Qatar against its Middle Eastern neighbours over the suspension of postal services as part of their continuing blockade of the country.

15 September 2020

Nassib G Ziadé, chief executive officer of the Bahrain Chamber for Dispute Resolution (BCDR-AAA), used a speech in Manama to question whether proposals to establish a permanent court to hear investment disputes would address the flaws in the current investor-state arbitration system or be in the best interests of developing countries.

13 February 2019

It's not the shock election result that everyone's talking about, but the votes for the new United Nations International Law Commission are in – giving membership to a handful of well known arbitration practitioners but overlooking others.

09 November 2016

The choice between arbitration and permanent courts to resolve the rising number of inter-state disputes was the subject of this year’s Lalive Lecture, delivered by Sir Michael Wood, the former principal legal adviser at the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office who now practises from 20 Essex Street in London. Lalive associate Tessa Hayes reports.

12 August 2016

11 July 2016