by Gladwin Issac, Associate, S&R Associates, Mumbai, India

Carolyn Lamm, Co-Chair of the Advisory Council of Rising Arbitrators Initiative (RAI) and Partner at White & Case, Washington D.C., and Rocío Digón, Co-Founder of RAI, meet Diana Bayzakova, Director of Tashkent International Arbitration Centre (TIAC) and Prof. Dr. Islambek Rustambekov, Vice-Rector, Tashkent State University of Law, in the next instalment of RAI’s “Interview the Institution” Series.

In this brief interaction with Carolyn and Rocío, Diana and Islambek highlight how the RAI resonates with the broader mandate of TIAC45 in taking meaningful steps to make arbitral appointments more transparent and offer some “behind-the-scenes” information on the arbitrator appointment process at TIAC. They also shed light on the appointment trends at TIAC, criteria that the TIAC Court of Arbitration applies while making appointments and the support systems in place at TIAC for arbitrators tasked with their first appointment. Diana and Islambek discuss the provisions on arbitrator appointment by state courts under the newly enacted Uzbekistan Law on International Commercial Arbitration (2021) and how they interact with the arbitral appointment process in the TIAC Rules of Arbitration. They specially note the TIAC’s recent growth as a regional ADR centre with a special focus on users in the CIS region, and their ongoing work to foster inclusion and diversity in international arbitration and create a level-playing field for younger arbitrators.

Watch the full recording of the interview on the RAI website, available here.