The final speeches of the 81st session of the UN General Assembly conclude on Monday. Reviewing many of them from the past two weeks, as I prepare my keynote for the Atlanta Arbitration Society's (AtlAS) 15th Annual Conference, I've been dismayed — at moments genuinely shocked — by the language of the men and women who lead us. It is a far cry from the principles recorded in the United Nations Charter, an instrument drafted in the aftermath of catastrophe by people who had recently watched where that kind of language leads.

The theme of this year's AtlAS conference is "Bridging the Divide," and I am honoured to have been asked to address the role, if any, of arbitration in resolving and averting geopolitical flashpoints. My talk will begin with Article 33 of the Charter, which obliges parties to a dispute that threatens international peace to seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, or other peaceful means — first of all, before they reach for anything else. I suspect many of us who work in dispute resolution have gone years without thinking about that sentence. (I wonder if many of those at the podium in NY this week know it is there at all?)

It's time we looked again at what Article 33 makes possible — with the scepticism the record deserves, and rather more optimism than this week has encouraged. I will be talking about the Alabama Claims arbitration (Geneva, 1872); the arrangement that sent American and Soviet commercial disputes to a neutral forum at the height of the Cold War (Stockholm, 1977); the Iran–United States Claims Tribunal (The Hague, 1981); the Taba arbitration, in which Egypt and Israel submitted a disputed stretch of border to a tribunal and lived with the answer (Geneva, 1988); and the United Nations Compensation Commission (Geneva, 1991). And about what each of them actually required of the people in the room, which was a good deal more than good intentions.

I will also be talking about the Indus Waters Treaty (1960), whose dispute resolution machinery carried India and Pakistan through three wars and is now, for the first time, under open challenge. The case for Article 33 is not made by success stories alone. But none of these arrangements was built by people who had concluded that nothing could be done.

Hopelessness is not an option.

My congratulations to AtlAS on fifteen years of accomplishment, and for its theme choice for this year's event. And my sincere thanks to the organizers for their confidence in inviting me to contribute to the discussion.

The 15th Annual AtlAS Conference will take place from 30 September to 2 October 2026 in Atlanta, Georgia. Interested individuals can still register here: https://lnkd.in/g95XMmpF