International Arbitration Checklist: A Practical Checklist

Document type: Checklist Practice area: Litigation — Arbitration Jurisdiction: International Last reviewed: 5 September 2026

Part 1 — Read the clause before anything else

Identify the seat — the legal seat, not the hearing location. If the clause names a city without saying "seat," flag the ambiguity now.
Identify the institution and the rules, including which version applies.
Identify the number of arbitrators and the appointment mechanism.
Identify the language of the arbitration.
Read the scope language. "Arising out of" is narrower than "arising out of or relating to."
Identify the law governing the contract.
Identify the law governing the arbitration agreement — often unstated, and it controls the clause's validity and scope.
Identify any conditions precedent: negotiation, mediation, cooling-off, notice.
Confirm which entity signed and whether it holds assets.
Confirm whether any parent guarantee contains its own arbitration clause.
Determine whether the award will fall under the New York Convention — 9 U.S.C. § 202 reaches agreements not entirely between U.S. citizens, and agreements between U.S. citizens with property abroad, performance abroad, or a reasonable relation to a foreign state.
Determine whether the Panama Convention applies instead under 9 U.S.C. § 305.

Part 2 — Map enforcement before filing

Locate the respondent's assets: corporate registries, property records, vessel and aircraft registries, credit reports, public filings, trade databases.
Confirm each asset jurisdiction is a Convention contracting state.
Obtain a preliminary view from local counsel in each on how their courts apply Article V.
Determine whether the respondent is a state or a state instrumentality; if so, analyze FSIA immunity from execution, not merely from suit.
Assess the respondent's solvency.
Assess the risk of asset dissipation and whether interim relief will be needed.
Decide, on this record, whether to arbitrate at all.

Part 3 — The request

Confirm the limitations position under the law governing the contract, and what act stops the clock.
Confirm any conditions precedent have been satisfied or are excused.
Draft the request: parties, agreement, nature of the dispute, relief sought.
Include proposals on arbitrator number and identity, seat, and language where the rules permit.
Pay the filing fee — the case is not registered until it is paid.
Budget the advance on costs, including the possibility of paying the respondent's half.
Serve in a manner that will withstand an Article V(1)(b) notice challenge, and document it.

Part 4 — Constituting the tribunal

For each candidate:

Read their published awards and decisions.
Read their academic writing and speeches.
Map prior appointments: by whom, how often, in what kinds of cases.
Confirm availability, with a concrete question about hearing capacity in the relevant window.
Confirm language capability in the contract's language.
Confirm nationality satisfies any rule requirement for the chair.
Run conflicts against your client, its affiliates, its counsel, and the opposing side.
Consult the IBA Guidelines on Conflicts of Interest red, orange, and green lists.

After appointment:

Review every disclosure carefully and immediately.
Raise any challenge promptly — delay waives it.
Confirm the tribunal's secretary arrangements, if any, and their scope.
Weigh whether a challenge is strong enough to bring, remembering that a failed challenge leaves you before an arbitrator you have accused.

Part 5 — The first procedural conference

Come with a draft Procedural Order No. 1 and a draft timetable.

Propose the memorial schedule — sequential or simultaneous, with dates.
Propose the document production framework, expressly referencing the IBA Rules.
Propose the witness statement format and cross-examination scope.
Propose the expert protocol: party-appointed or tribunal-appointed; sequential or simultaneous; conferral and joint statement.
Propose hearing format, length, and time allocation.
Propose confidentiality terms.
Address bifurcation — and resist it unless a discrete issue is genuinely dispositive.
Fix the seat if the clause left it open.
Agree the language and translation protocol, including who bears translation cost.
Agree the privilege standard to be applied, rather than leaving it to be litigated document by document.
Agree electronic filing, exhibit numbering, and bundle conventions.
At the ICC: negotiate the Terms of Reference carefully — a claim omitted may need authorization to add later.

Part 6 — Memorials

Engage the quantum expert before the first memorial.
Build the chronology and dramatis personae first; they organize everything.
Attach all exhibits relied on.
Attach all witness statements.
Attach all expert reports.
Cite exhibits by page and paragraph.
State the relief sought with a quantified figure.
Confirm nothing material is being held back for the hearing.
Observe any page limits; exercise discipline where there are none.
Prepare translations of exhibits in other languages, with a consistent convention.

Part 7 — Document production

Draft requests in Redfern Schedule format.
For each request: identify a document or a narrow and specific category.
For each request: explain relevance and materiality to the outcome in two sentences.
For each request: state that the documents are not in your possession and why they are believed to be in the other side's.
Name custodians where known.
Keep the number small — fifteen good requests beat sixty.
Review your own requests as the tribunal will: would you grant this?

Responding:

Object on IBA Article 9 grounds where they genuinely apply: relevance, privilege, burden, loss, confidentiality, sensitivity, procedural economy.
Do not object reflexively — a party that objects to everything loses credibility on the objections that matter.
Produce what is ordered, completely and on time.
Remember that a failure to produce without satisfactory explanation invites an adverse inference under IBA Article 9.

And note:

28 U.S.C. § 1782 is not available for private international commercial arbitration after ZF Automotive US, Inc. v. Luxshare, Ltd., 596 U.S. 619 (2022). Do not build a strategy on it.

Part 8 — Witness and expert evidence

Witnesses:

Select the minimum set whose evidence is necessary.
Draft statements in the witness's own voice, not counsel's.
Confine statements to facts within the witness's knowledge.
Integrate documents with specific exhibit references.
Address the bad documents in the statement rather than leaving them for cross.
Prepare the witness for the process and the documents, within professional limits.
Confirm availability for the hearing — a witness who does not appear risks an adverse inference.
Arrange visas and travel early.

Experts:

Engage early, especially quantum.
Confirm independence and disclose any prior relationship with a party.
Agree the report format and any tribunal-directed questions.
Push for expert conferral and a joint statement — it narrows the case dramatically.
Decide your position on witness conferencing ("hot-tubbing") before the pre-hearing conference.

Part 9 — Interim relief

Determine whether assets are at risk of dissipation.
If so, file the arbitration — most emergency arbitrator provisions require a pending or imminent case.
Apply for an emergency arbitrator for relief binding the counterparty.
Simultaneously seek court relief where third parties must be bound (banks, registries, customs).
Confirm the clause preserves the right to seek court interim relief; if it does not, address the waiver argument.
If you are the respondent, evaluate an application for security for costs where the claimant is impecunious or funded.

Part 10 — Hearing

Confirm format: in person, remote, or hybrid — and raise any need for in-person testimony early, with specifics.
Confirm the time allocation and build a time budget by witness.
Book simultaneous interpreters months ahead; provide memorials and a glossary.
Engage a real-time transcription provider; agree the format.
Assign one owner for the hearing bundle — electronic, hyperlinked, identically paginated.
Confirm sitting hours work across the tribunal's and witnesses' time zones.
Confirm visas, travel, and accommodation.
Prepare short openings — the tribunal has read the memorials.
Prepare for the tribunal's questions, not only for your own case.

Part 11 — Post-hearing and the award

File post-hearing briefs to the tribunal's schedule, answering any specific questions first.
File cost submissions itemized by phase and fee earner, addressing proportionality and the other side's conduct.
Disclose third-party funding where required.

When the award arrives:

Record the date and manner of delivery.
Read it against every submitted claim; identify anything not decided.
Check the arithmetic.
Check interest: rate, accrual date, compounding.
Check the costs allocation and whether it is quantified.
Calendar the correction/interpretation window under the rules (often 30 days).
Calendar the set-aside deadline at the seat (often 3 months).
Calendar 9 U.S.C. § 207 — three years to confirm in the United States.

Part 12 — Enforcement

Update the asset map.
Obtain certified translations of the award and the arbitration agreement.
File in the United States under § 207, with federal jurisdiction under § 203 — no diversity or amount requirement.
File in each foreign jurisdiction in parallel, not sequentially.
Engage local enforcement counsel before filing in each.
Instruct counsel at the seat to monitor for a set-aside application and respond immediately.
Anticipate Article V defenses: notice and opportunity to be heard, scope, tribunal composition, annulment at the seat, non-arbitrability, public policy.
Consider provisional measures — arrest, attachment, garnishment — where available.
Where the debtor is a state, identify property in the enforcing jurisdiction used for commercial activity.
Track the debtor's solvency; a bankruptcy filing changes everything.

Part 13 — Drafting the clause (do this before there is a dispute)

Name the seat expressly, and separately permit hearings elsewhere.
Name the institution and the rules precisely, including which version.
Specify the number of arbitrators and the appointment mechanism, with deadlines.
Specify the language.
Draw the scope broadly: "arising out of, relating to, or in connection with, including formation, validity, breach, termination, or invalidity."
Specify the law governing the contract and the law governing the arbitration agreement.
Preserve the right to seek interim relief from any court of competent jurisdiction.
Address document production if a foreseeable dispute will turn on the other side's records.
Address confidentiality expressly, with carve-outs for enforcement, compliance, insurers, auditors, and lenders.
Address costs and fee-shifting authority.
Address interest rates, pre-award and post-award.
Consider a parent guarantee containing its own arbitration clause where the signatory is thinly capitalized.
Do not attempt to expand judicial review of the award; it does not work.