International arbitration is a dispute resolution method frequently used in cross-border disputes. Apart from traditional and important seats in international arbitration, other jurisdictions started being active in the arbitration area. This article focuses on international arbitration developments in Turkic countries. Turkic countries use arbitration increasingly. They have signed many investment treaties and updated their laws, which enable arbitration to be used against them as well as investors and companies from Turkic countries to use international commercial and investment arbitration against other companies and states where they invest. We also see arbitration centres that have become active recently in Turkic countries. The Organization of Turkic countries was established with the 2009 Nakhchivan Agreement dated October 3, 2009. This article examines the developments in international arbitration of 5 current members of the Organization of Turkic countries, namely, Azerbaijan, Turkiye, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Additionally, the steps to be taken to ensure that these jurisdictions have a better place in international arbitration are also evaluated in this article.

About the Speakers:

Dr Eken is an assistant professor at Durham Law School and deputy director of the Durham International Dispute Resolution Institute. He is also a co-director of the Master of Laws (LLM) programmes at Durham Law School. He researches and gives consultancy to law firms mainly on international commercial arbitration, investment law, contracts, third-party funding, commercial mediation and other alternative dispute resolution (ADR) methods. He is an award-winning international legal scholar. He is a triple-qualified attorney, admitted to practice law in England and Wales as a solicitor, an Attorney and Counselor at the Law in California, and Turkiye (formerly Turkey); and a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIARB). He holds two LLM degrees, one from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and another from Dokuz Eylül University, where he also obtained his bachelor’s degree in law with a high honour degree. He studied his PhD degree in Laws at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He spent the 2019/20 academic year at Stanford University and two months in 2021 at Max Planck Institute in Luxembourg as a visiting scholar. He wrote his doctoral thesis on third-party funding in investment arbitration which is in the process of publishing. He actively publishes research articles and acts as a peer-reviewer in major law journals.

*CPD credits are available upon application and subject to accreditation by the Law Society of Hong Kong (currently pending).

Register here by 10:00am, 13 May 2024 to attend the seminar.