The CAM-CCBC Arbitration Congress ended its sixth edition with a certainty: the event officially entered a new era of technology. For the first time in history, the Congress held an interactive panel. Using the Center’s application, participants answered in real-time to questions about transparency in arbitration, which guided the panel’s debates. The application also allowed the exchange of contacts among the professionals present through a virtual business card.

The 2019 edition also celebrated the evolution of diversity practices. Last year, CAM-CCBC signed a commitment to equality and representation in arbitration, The ERA Pledge. One of the commitments made is to ensure that women fill 30% of the speakers’ slots in the events organized by the institution. In the Congress, the number of women speakers increased by more than 10% since 2018, totaling 49% this year. To top it off, the 2019 edition was the first one with a woman as the Center’s President, the lawyer and arbitrator Eleonora Coelho.

The VI CAM-CCBC Arbitration Congress gathered around 500 participants, with 39 speakers from several countries. The grand opening lecture was given by Gabrielle Kaufmann-Kohler, emeritus professor at the University of Geneva School of Law and one of the most influential names in international arbitration.

With the theme “The Future of International Dispute Resolution” (the professor’s lecture presented a history of ADR, from the origin of arbitration to its expansion jointly with globalization. Gabrielle even risked a prediction: “If arbitration was the twentieth century’s method of dispute resolution, then mediation will certainly be the method of the twenty-first century.”

The next edition of the event that puts São Paulo at the center of the arbitration international scenario has already been scheduled. It will be held on October 19 and 20, 2020, at the Hilton Hotel Morumbi, marking once again the opening of the São Paulo Arbitration Week.