Switzerland: Arbitration & Dispute Resolution

The Swiss Federal Patent Court has delivered a landmark ruling confirming Switzerland's role as a powerful forum for cross-border patent enforcement, establishing that claims for infringement of foreign patent designations...

Artificial intelligence is increasingly being used in international arbitration for legal research, document review, and drafting. However, its use becomes difficult to assess when an arbitrator turns to AI not merely to process information, but to obtain a view on a legal issue that the tribunal must decide. This article examines emerging guidance on whether arbitrators can ask AI for its opinion on legal questions and explores the boundaries between AI as a research tool and AI as a decision-maker.

Security for costs has become an increasingly important procedural issue in investment arbitration. A respondent State may spend millions defending a treaty claim and, even after prevailing and obtaining a costs award, remain exposed to non-recovery where the claimant is insolvent or has few assets against which the award can be enforced. Security for costs is designed to mitigate that risk before a final costs award is rendered.

The ICC's 2025 Dispute Resolution Statistics reveal a global arbitration system operating at near-record levels, with 894 new cases and 1,869 pending matters. The data exposes evolving patterns in regional dispute resolution, expedited procedures, and institutional oversight, while highlighting persistent challenges in efficiency, diversity, and award quality that are reshaping how parties approach international commercial arbitration.

Artificial intelligence has made it easier than ever to create convincing fake videos, audio recordings, and images—raising urgent questions about how international arbitration tribunals should handle disputed audiovisual evidence. As deepfakes become more sophisticated and harder to detect, arbitrators face a growing challenge: determining not just what weight to give evidence, but whether that evidence is authentic at all.

An Annex VII arbitral tribunal issued a mixed Award in Ukraine v. Russian Federation, a major law-of-the-sea arbitration concerning coastal State rights in the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov, and the Kerch Strait. Ukraine succeeded on important environmental claims, with the Tribunal holding that Russia violated UNCLOS by conducting inadequate environmental impact assessments and failing to cooperate on marine environment protection.

The UNCITRAL Code of Conduct for Arbitrators in International Investment Dispute Resolution (the "UNCITRAL Code of Conduct") recalibrates ethical expectations in investor-state dispute settlement.

Mediators live with the possibility of impasse – the point at which parties stop moving toward agreement, stop exchanging meaningful offers, and dig in on their positions and demands.

Few areas of US law are as committed to enforcing private dispute resolution as the Federal Arbitration Act ("FAA"). Since its enactment in 1925, the FAA has required courts to treat written arbitration agreements...