If Shakespeare said in “Hamlet" that "apparel oft proclaims the man”, then in modern Germany it would be ‘‘titles oft proclaims the man”. But in the core, doing a PhD is an act of researching the topic you are truly inspired by. As a doctorate candidate, one always wants to have some sort of support from colleagues to know that the chosen path is not something you have just in your mind but something visible to others.
The first conference for doctoral candidates of this kind took place in the past August. It was the Workshop for Doctoral Candidates, jointly organised by the Deutsche Institution für Schiedsgerichtsbarkeit e.V. (DIS) German Arbitration Institute and Bucerius Law School (Hamburg) under the supervision of Professor Stefan Kröll and with the help of his assistant Thilo Kerkhoff, dedicated to the international arbitration and ADR methods. Doctoral candidates presented their research in front of an audience with a following academic discourse. This Workshop was possible due to the support of the Karl-Heinz Böckstiegel Foundation, established in 2021 by Professor emeritus Karl-Heinz Böckstiegel, a longstanding member of the ICCA Governing Board.
One day and a half of lively discussions were held under the guidance of Professor Stefan Kroll, Professor Karsten Thorn, and Dr Sebastian Seelmann-Eggebert. They were asking precise questions and were showing other sides of the presented topics to its authors which potentially should become helpful for the doctoral candidates’ further research.
Among the topics discussed, there were topics on technologies, such as fact-finding through algorithmic e-document production (Charlotte Peters) and arbitration on the blockchain (Paul Eichmüller), modern trends such as sanctions and their application in arbitration (Loïc Stucki), CAS Ad hoc Division cases and interim relief in front of the state courts (Justus Jonas Heinze), the effectiveness of arbitration claim and award in the case of restoration of the company (Alexander Wagner) and ex parte measures of the arbitral tribunal under section 1041 para. 1 s. 1 of the German Civil Code of Procedure (Casper Baumeister).
Furthermore, there were heated discussions on the topics of the law applicable to the international investment arbitration agreement (Martin Gronemann), the voluntariness requirements in arbitration binding third parties (Kilian Sendlmeier), separation of the constitutive statute from the arbitral procedure statute (Arian Birth), pre-insolvency arbitration agreements (Jannik Fink), application of European Union law by commercial arbitration tribunals (Maren Vogel), the object of challenge in superior arbitration (Jascha Trubowitz) and the topic of "documents-only arbitration" (Florian Wundrich).
In addition to the substantive part, the participants had the opportunity to build a network in the arbitration community.
Such events serve the development of international arbitration and the promotion of young academics and should therefore become a permanent practice.
Kseniia Stepanova,
LL.M. candidate for the International Dispute Resolution Program at the Humboldt-University Berlin