2025 ICCA President's Report to the ICCA Membership
From ICCA President Stanimir Alexandrov, January 2026
As I look back on 2025, I am pleased to see that ICCA has continued to grow and strengthen its global reach over the past year. Our achievements are a testament to the dedication and engagement of our Members, whose support enables us to advance ICCA’s mission of promoting and improving arbitral and other dispute resolution processes around the world.
In June 2025, we continued our engagement with emerging jurisdictions by co-hosting an ICCA-KIAC Conference in Kigali, Rwanda, which focused on the theme “Africa & International Arbitration: Untold Stories”, in a conference programme curated by Meg Kinnear, John Ohaga and Thierry Ngoga. The conference was a resounding success and brought together more than 300 delegates and expert speakers from the region for insightful discussions about the future of international arbitration in Africa, as well as side-events engaging with judges, women practitioners, arbitral institutes and young practitioners. Our week in Kigali also provided us with an excellent opportunity to launch ICCA’s Database of Historical African Dispute Resolution. The Database compiles materials relating to historical arbitral proceedings involving an African government, party or interest, and spans three centuries. This is an initiative of the ICCA Working Group on African Arbitral Practice and will continue to be expanded. The Database is available via the ICCA website.
In other project news, ICCA released a Kigali Special Edition of the Sourcebook for Logistical Matters in Procedural Orders, and the research project Does a Right to a Physical Hearing Exist in International Arbitration? transformed their report into a “Practical Insights” module for Kluwer Arbitration.
Turning now to ICCA Publications, the ICCA team have continued to deliver materials of an outstanding quality, keeping the arbitration community abreast of recent developments in the field and well informed across numerous jurisdictions. The ICCA Handbook Commercial Arbitration updated 17 country reports, and the ICCA Yearbook and the ICCA Awards Series reported on 120 court decisions and 19 arbitral awards throughout the year. With this year’s progress, ICCA has now published a total of approximately 3,600 curated judicial decisions and over 650 awards. All ICCA publications are available through Kluwer Arbitration.
ICCA remained committed to advancing its Diversity and Inclusion initiatives throughout 2025. Through the ICCA Inclusion Fund, 29 participants received funding to attend the ICCA-KIAC Conference, broadening access to our global community. The Johnny Veeder Fellowship Programme supported eight fellows in pursuing their academic and professional aspirations. Both of these Programmes continue in 2026.
In addition, the ICCA Judiciary Committee continued its outreach initiatives throughout 2025. Alongside meetings with judges in Kigali and an online workshop with the European Judicial Training Network, the Committee held New York Convention Roadshows in Baghdad, Cairo, Lima and Riyadh. And as ever, we continue to facilitate Young ICCA’s mission of opening the doors of international arbitration to the next generation of lawyers through mentorship, training, writing, and scholarship opportunities.
I look forward to the next major ICCA gathering and hope to see many of you at the 27th ICCA Congress in Madrid from 12-15 April 2026. In Madrid we will explore the theme “International Arbitration: Local, Global or Both?” and I warmly invite you to join the conversation.
Stanimir Alexandrov,
ICCA President