Heavyweights BP, ConocoPhillips and Royal Dutch Shell are among the first corporate organisations to sign-up to the Equal Representation in Arbitration Pledge, an initiative which asks organisations to commit to increasing the number of women they appoint as arbitrators. Of 449 appointments to the London Court of International Arbitration last year, just 71 (or 16 per cent) were women. The gender ratio was even worse when looking only at the 208 appointments made by parties in dispute, of which just 7 per cent were women.

Support growing

The Equal Representation in Arbitration Pledge was launched on Friday by Freshfields arbitration expert Sylvia Noury and Wendy Miles QC of Boies Schiller, and has attracted over 300 signatures since going live. The two women will oversee a 30-strong steering committee which will monitor the campaign’s progress, also including BP assistant general counsel Joanne Cross and ConocoPhillips managing counsel Suzana Blades. According to reports in Legal Business, Orange general counsel Isabelle Hautot, General Electric vice president and senior litigation counsel Bradford Berenson and vice chair of the European Central Bank's review board, Concetta Brescia Morra, have all also signed up.  

The pledge

Full details of the pledge can be found here. Its key aims are to ensure, wherever possible, that:

• committees, governing bodies and conference panels in the field of arbitration include a fair representation of women;
• lists of potential arbitrators or tribunal chairs provided to or considered by parties, counsel, in-house counsel or otherwise include a fair representation of female candidates;
• states, arbitral institutions and national committees include a fair representation of female candidates on rosters and lists of potential arbitrator appointees, where maintained by them;
• where they have the power to do so, counsel, arbitrators, representatives of corporates, states and arbitral institutions appoint a fair representation of female arbitrators;
• gender statistics for appointments (split by party and other appointment) are collated and made publicly available; and
• senior and experienced arbitration practitioners support, mentor/sponsor and encourage women to pursue arbitrator appointments and otherwise enhance their profiles and practice.