Events

Closing Remarks by His Excellency Mr Murali Pillai
Bilateralism in Action: Singapore – Bahrain

In his closing remarks, H.E. Mr Murali Pillai frames bilateralism through three concrete forces: a Singapore–Bahrain partnership built over decades; the BICC’s distinctive design, including a transnational appellate pathway to a Singapore-designated body; and a shared conviction that rule-of-law credibility has become commercial capital for two regional economic nodes navigating a more fragmented global order.

Keynote by Justice Chile Eboe-Osuji
No Commerce Without Peace

Justice Chile Eboe-Osuji situates peace as the constitutive condition of commerce, and casts courts and the peaceful settlement of disputes as indispensable legal infrastructure: institutional mechanisms that discipline conflict, sustain confidence in outcomes, and preserve the baseline stability on which markets, cities, and ordinary economic life depend.

Conversation with Professor Marike Patrani Paulsson
International Commercial Courts: The New Arbitration of 2025 and Beyond

• Professor Jan Paulsson
• Justice Philip Jeyaretnam
• Professor Joan Donoghue

Framed by Professor Marike Patrani Paulsson, Secretary General of Bahrain’s Council for International Dispute Resolution, this conversation and panel brings together Justice President of the Singapore International Commercial Court, Professor Jan Paulsson, President of the Bahrain International Commercial Court, and Professor Joan E. Donoghue, former President of the International Court of Justice to test a hard question: can international commercial courts match arbitration’s cross border practicality on enforceability, finality, and user confidence, and how does the Bahrain-Singapore appellate pathway shift that assessment.

Welcome Remarks by

• Shaikh Khalid bin Ali Al Khalifa
• Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon

Shaikh Khalid bin Ali Al Khalifa and Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon opened the conference by linking transnational commerce to judicial reliability, and by framing international commercial courts as a structural response to cross border markets that increasingly demand speed, expertise, and credibility. Together, their remarks positioned these courts as engines of legal convergence, where publicly reasoned judgments, disciplined procedure, and deeper cooperation across jurisdictions help predictability and enforceability travel with global trade.

The King Hamad Forum for Neutral Justice brought together a distinguished group of judges, government officials, international legal experts, and commercial practitioners from more than a dozen countries to discuss the impact of new international courts on trade and investment, innovations in cross-border dispute resolution, and the Kingdom of Bahrain’s vision to strengthen its role as a regional hub for commercial justice and global legal collaboration.