Second Edition International Arbitration Conference
November 5-6, 2026, Buenos Aires
Panel 1 — Institutional Arbitration in Latin America: Each Institution's Perspective
Rules, case management and legitimacy: what defines an arbitral institution in the region today
Latin America has become one of the fastest-growing sources of caseload for the world's leading arbitral institutions. The ICC, the LCIA, the SIAC, the Permanent Court of Arbitration and the region's most established centres compete and cooperate in a market spanning construction, energy, mining, M&A and corporate disputes, with both private and State parties. This panel brings together representatives of the leading institutions so that each may set out its own perspective on the regional market and on the rule reforms it is implementing — expedited procedures, joinder and consolidation, emergency arbitrator relief, disclosure of third-party funding and the digitalization of proceedings. The discussion also turns to what an institution must offer for Buenos Aires to consolidate itself as a regional seat. The aim is to give users a candid, first-hand comparison of rules, costs, timelines and case-management practices.
Panel 2 — AI in the Arbitral Process: Delegation, Due Process and the Human Arbitrator
Can technology assist the tribunal without becoming the fourth arbitrator?
Artificial intelligence is already embedded in international arbitration — in document review, translation, legal research, drafting and, increasingly, in predictive analytics for case strategy and outcome modelling. The question is no longer whether AI will shape the process, but how that influence is to be governed. This panel addresses the tension between the efficiency gains offered by AI tools and the core due-process guarantees that underpin the legitimacy of arbitral proceedings: equality of treatment, the right to be heard, transparency in decision-making and the intuitu personae nature of the arbitral mandate. It examines where permissible assistance ends and impermissible delegation begins, and how disclosure obligations should operate for parties, counsel and tribunals alike. It also considers whether existing frameworks can keep pace with the rate of AI adoption, or whether a new regulatory layer is required.
Panel 3 — Mining Arbitration: From Classic Mining to Rare Earths and Critical Minerals
From copper to lithium and rare earths: how the minerals of the energy transition are disputed
Mining concentrates some of the most complex disputes in international arbitration: capital-intensive projects, twenty- to thirty-year cycles, State and provincial counterparties, and a degree of political and social exposure that no contract can fully neutralize. To the classic sources of litigation — joint ventures and earn-in agreements, EPC contracts, offtake, royalties, fiscal stability and indirect expropriation — a new layer has been added: the critical minerals of the energy transition. Lithium from the Argentine-Chilean-Bolivian triangle, together with copper, nickel and rare earths, has shifted the debate towards export restrictions, local-processing requirements, mandatory State participation and the reconfiguration of supply chains. The panel contrasts the Chilean experience, as the region's most mature mining jurisdiction, with the Argentine scenario, where provincial ownership of natural resources, the Mining Code, Law No. 24,196 and the RIGI coexist within an architecture that remains untested. Social licence, community consultation and human-rights standards are examined as sources of claims, defences and counterclaims.
Panel 4 — Oil & Gas Arbitration in Latin America
Vaca Muerta, pre-salt and deep water: how disputes in the hydrocarbons industry are resolved
Hydrocarbons have been, for decades, one of the principal sources of arbitration in Latin America, and the current cycle is once again expanding that litigation: Vaca Muerta and the LNG projects in Argentina, the Brazilian pre-salt, and the deep waters of Guyana and Suriname. Disputes run across the entire chain — joint operating agreements and farm-outs, concession and association contracts with the State, service and drilling contracts, midstream, gas supply contracts with take-or-pay and price-review clauses, unitization and, increasingly, decommissioning obligations. Operating over that contractual substrate are powerful sectoral regulators and State-owned enterprises that act simultaneously as partners, counterparties and instruments of public policy. The panel examines how such disputes are structured and resolved in practice, with particular attention to the choice between ad hoc and institutional arbitration and to the difficulties of proceeding against State entities. It closes on how Vaca Muerta and LNG projects are being structured under the RIGI, and on the impact of the energy transition on long-term contracts.
★ Fireside Chat — The YPF Case: What Happened, What Changed, What Comes Next
The YPF litigation as a mirror of the evolution of Argentine arbitration and investment law
The 2012 nationalization of YPF and the multi-jurisdictional litigation it generated — including the landmark judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and the enforcement proceedings pending in the Netherlands, Luxembourg and other jurisdictions — constitute one of the most consequential investment disputes in the history of Latin American international law. This session offers a candid and analytical review of what the case revealed about Argentina's approach to its international investment obligations, and how it reshaped the political economy of foreign investment in the country. It examines the interplay between contractual arbitration clauses, BIT protections and domestic corporate law in high-impact nationalizations. It also asks what the YPF precedent implies for the design and credibility of State contracts under the RIGI, particularly as regards governing law, choice of forum and stabilization clauses. The session is deliberately structured as a conversation rather than a panel, so as to allow frank exchange among practitioners with direct knowledge of the proceedings.
The II International Arbitration Conference returns on November 5–6, 2026, at the Salón Rojo of the University of Buenos Aires School of Law. Following its inaugural edition in New York City, the Conference comes to Buenos Aires for two days of debate on the issues shaping international arbitration in Latin America and beyond.
Arbitrators, counsel, academics and in-house lawyers from the Americas and Europe will discuss investment and commercial arbitration, the region's evolving regulatory framework, and the practical challenges facing the profession today.
The Conference is jointly organized by the University of Buenos Aires School of Law, Columbia Law School and the New York City Bar Association, with the support of the ICC International Court of Arbitration, ICC Argentina and the ICC Young Arbitration and ADR Forum (ICC YAAF) as Supporting Partners.
November 5
November 6
Panel 5 — Sports Arbitration: Governance, Sanctions and the Globalization of Sports Disputes
From the field to the tribunal: why sports disputes became global legal disputes
Sports arbitration has evolved from a niche dispute-resolution mechanism into a sophisticated field combining labour law, human rights, anti-doping regulation, governance accountability and commercial law on a global scale. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS/TAS) handles thousands of cases each year, and its jurisprudence increasingly intersects with that of national courts in Switzerland, Germany and elsewhere. At the same time, the regulatory autonomy of sports federations — FIFA, World Athletics, WADA — is being challenged by athletes, States and courts on due-process and proportionality grounds. This panel examines the structural tensions in the current architecture of sports arbitration, from the voluntariness of consent and the independence of arbitrators to the finality of sports awards. It also considers how Latin American States and federations should engage with this system, and the intersection with labour arbitration for professional athletes under Argentine law.
Panel 6 — Tariffs, Taxes and Trade Shocks: Contract Adaptation and Arbitration in a Fragmented Global Economy
When tariffs rewrite the bargain: force majeure, hardship and change-in-law revisited
The resurgence of trade protectionism — including the tariff shocks arising from US–China decoupling, the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism and the proliferation of industrial-policy subsidies — is generating a new generation of commercial disputes. Long-term supply contracts, joint ventures and infrastructure agreements are being stress-tested by abrupt regulatory changes that the parties did not build into their risk allocation. Arbitral tribunals are increasingly called upon to assess claims of force majeure, supervening hardship, frustration of purpose and change-in-law — and to distinguish genuine economic disruption from mere contractual disappointment. The panel examines how these clauses are being construed where the legal change is a deliberate policy decision rather than an unforeseen regulatory event, and which model clauses are emerging from institutional guidance. The Argentine experience with exchange controls, import restrictions and price regulation offers a distinctive vantage point on the drafting of such provisions.
Panel 7 — Climate Change, Human Rights and Investment Arbitration: The New Public-Law Frontier
Will climate obligations redefine the balance between investor protection and State regulation?
Investment arbitration stands at a crossroads. The traditional framework — built around investor rights, stability expectations and treatment-standard obligations — is being challenged by the imperative of State regulatory action on climate change and by the growing recognition of environmental and human rights as limits on investment protection, or as the basis for counterclaims. This tension is not theoretical: a new generation of cases involves States defending renewable-energy transition measures, fossil-fuel phase-out decisions and environmental-impact requirements as legitimate exercises of regulatory power, while investors allege expropriation or breaches of fair and equitable treatment. The panel maps the doctrinal fault lines, from the police powers doctrine to the status of environmental and human-rights counterclaims and the reform of the Energy Charter Treaty. It closes on the role Argentina should play in shaping this debate, as a party to numerous BITs, a signatory to the Paris Agreement and a destination for significant fossil-fuel and mining investment under the RIGI.
Panel 8 — Corporate Law Reform and Investment Structuring in Argentina
Corporate vehicles, governance and legal certainty for the next investment cycle
Argentina's Companies Act (Law No. 19,550) and its regulatory ecosystem are under active reform pressure, driven by the demands of project structuring under the RIGI, the need to accommodate new corporate forms for technology and start-up investment, and the current deregulation agenda. This panel examines the corporate dimension of investment structuring: which vehicles work for large-scale projects, how joint ventures, SPVs and financial trusts operate in energy, mining and infrastructure, and where they generate arbitrable disputes. It addresses the arbitral resolution of corporate disputes — shareholder conflicts, appraisal rights and deadlock-breaking mechanisms — under Law No. 27,449 and the applicable procedural codes, together with the developing corporate caseload of the CACE and the CAM. It also considers the governance and anti-corruption compliance frameworks becoming standard for foreign investors, and how they interact with Law No. 27,401. The aim is to identify the reforms required to reduce legal uncertainty and transaction costs for the next investment cycle.