The Board of Trustees of the Dubai International Arbitration Centre (DIAC) is pleased to announce the appointment of Mr. Nassib G. Ziadé as the new Director for DIAC, effective 24 July 2011.

A dual Lebanese and Chilean national, Mr. Ziadé has extensive experience in the administration of international legal proceedings and in the management and development of international tribunals. He also has extensive experience in private and public international law, international arbitration and international administrative law. Mr. Ziadé’s mandate will be to ensure that DIAC operates in every aspect of its functioning in accordance with the highest international standards and to preserve its integrity and the independence of its operations. Prof. Martin Hunter, Chairman of DIAC’s Board of Trustees, said: "Nassib Ziadé has the high level of expertise and experience the DIAC’s Board of Trustees was seeking when appointing the new permanent director, and we are confident that he will steer the Centre successfully through the challenges presented by its current caseload, which has increased substantially both in volume and complexity since the global financial problems that started in late 2008. We are delighted that he has accepted the position, and look forward to working with him to enhance the performance and reputation of DIAC during the next phase of its development." Dr. Habib Al Mulla, Vice Chairman of DIAC’s Board of Trustees, stated: "The appointment of such a prominent figure means that DIAC is determined to move to an international level and make its mark as one of the leading arbitration centres in the Region."

Mr. Ziadé was the Deputy Secretary-General of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) between 2007 and 2011, and he also served between April 2008 and June 2009 as Acting Secretary-General of ICSID. From 1997 to 2007, he served as the Executive Secretary of the World Bank Administrative Tribunal. In addition, Mr. Ziadé advised in 2002 the Government of Bahrain on the establishment of its Constitutional Court. He also advised several international organizations on the establishment and functioning of their international administrative tribunals and was in 1998 a member of the Grievance Process Review Committee which reviewed and reformed the World Bank’s Internal Conflict Resolution System.

Mr. Ziadé is a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), a Council member of the International Federation of Commercial Arbitration Institutions (IFCAI) and a member of the Court of the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA).

Mr. Ziadé has published extensively in the field of international law. He has organized several high-profile international colloquia, and he is a frequent speaker on a diverse range of legal topics at conferences in the Arab world, Europe, Latin America and the United States. He is a Visiting Professor at the University of Miami School of Law and at the University of Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne. He is a former Editor-in-Chief of the ICSID Review—Foreign Investment Law Journal, a long-standing member of the Editorial Advisory Committee of International Legal Materials and a member of the Editorial Committee of the Journal of Arab Arbitration. He is a Patron of the American Society of International Law and a former member of its Executive Council, a member of the Société française pour le droit international and a member of the Swiss Arbitration Association. He is also a member of the Advisory Council of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law at the University of Cambridge.

Mr. Ziadé studied at the French University in Beirut, the American University of Beirut, Cambridge University and the Sorbonne. He is fluent in Arabic, English and French, and he has a working knowledge of Spanish.

The Board of Trustees takes this opportunity to thank Dr. Hadif Rashid Al-Owais, Vice Chairman of DIAC’s Executive Committee, for his excellent work in serving as DIAC’s Acting Director between July 2010 and July 2011.