ICC News

14 January 2020 Despite overall piracy incidents declining in 2019, there was an alarming increase in crew kidnappings across the Gulf of Guinea, according to the International Chamber of Commerce’s International Maritime Bureau’s (IMB) annual piracy report. In 2019, IMB’s Piracy Reporting Centre received 162 incidents of piracy and armed robbery against ships worldwide, in comparison to 201 reported incidents in 2018. The incidents included four hijacked vessels, 11 vessels fired upon, 17 attempted attacks, and 130 vessels boarded, according to the latest IMB figures. While the overall decline in piracy incidents is an encouraging development, vessels remain at risk in

9 January 2020 Commencing 2020 on a dispute resolution high note, the International Court of Arbitration (ICC Court) of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) has registered its 25,000th case and announced record arbitration figures for 2019. Case 25,000 involves parties from the Middle East and India and will be administered through the Secretariat’s office in Singapore. The trailblazing ICC Court – named by the latest Queen Mary University Survey as the world’s most preferred arbitral institution – registered a total of 869 new cases in 2019, of which 851 cases under the trusted ICC Rules of Arbitration and 18 under its Appointing

20 December 2019 In the midst of the eighth session of the Conference of the State Parties (CoSP8) to the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Civil Society Team, in partnership with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), held a special event to present ideas and best practices in collective action initiatives for the implementation of UNCAC in Southeast Europe (SEE). The event, held on 18 December in Abu Dhabi, also reiterated a strong commitment to the Belgrade Outcome Statement that lays out concrete and practical steps towards cooperation on anti-corruption. The

17 December 2019 A comprehensive set of principles on how business can facilitate the economic integration of refugees into the global economy was presented by ICC Secretary General John WH Denton AO during the Global Refugee Forum, taking place this week in Geneva from 16-18 December. The Charter seeks to contribute to the shift from ad hoc humanitarianism to long-term development and employment opportunities that benefit refugees and their host communities alike. The Charter of Good Practice on the Role of The Private Sector in Economic Integration of Refugees  was elaborated collectively by experts from the private sector, governments and inter-governmental organisations at a

15 December 2019 Climate negotiations concluded today in Madrid, leaving global business deeply disappointed that a deal could not be reached on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. The negotiations – COP25 – marked the longest in history. Yet despite progress on many agenda items – including gender; oceans; land; loss and damages; adaptation; and response measures – governments failed to match the ambitions of business and other stakeholders regarding the operationalisation of  “Article 6” of the Paris Agreement, a crucial missing element of the so-called “Paris Rulebook” agreed at COP24 in Katowice, Poland a year ago. Majda Dabaghi, ICC’s Director of

10 December 2019 ICC has welcomed the decision taken today by members of the World Trade Organization to renew the longstanding global prohibition on applying customs duties to cross-border data flows. Known as the “WTO e-commerce moratorium”, the agreement – first established in 1998 – has played an important role in the development of the Internet by keeping tariffs off digitally delivered products, services and content. In recent months ICC has warned that a failure to renew this deal would not only add to a damaging pattern of escalating tariffs, but could also wreak potential havoc in the online economy. Commenting on today’s

9 December 2019 ICC has published an arbitration practice note relating to the application of a China-Hong Kong arrangement for mutual assistance in court-ordered interim relief measures, under which ICC has been named an authorised institution. The new practice note provides guidance on making an application for interim relief to the People’s Courts of Mainland China in support of arbitral proceedings seated in Hong Kong and administered under the ICC Rules of Arbitration, by the Hong Kong case management office of the Secretariat of the ICC International Court of Arbitration. In October 2019, ICC announced that it had satisfied criteria set out by the Hong Kong

4 December 2019 The institutional representative of over 45 million businesses has today issued a call for major public policy reforms to scale financing to meet global climate and sustainability challenges. In an open letter to finance ministers, the International Chamber of Commerce has set out a comprehensive 10 point plan to better align the governance of the financial system with the objectives of the 2015 Paris Agreement and the United Nation’s (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The unprecedented intervention from a major business group comes amid growing concern about persistent financing gaps to support the implementation of global sustainability objectives. In

3 December 2019 The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) united with participants at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) to pursue meaningful policies aimed at improving digital access for all. At this year’s IGF, ICC brought together business, government, civil society and the technical community to discuss Internet governance through a series of workshops, briefings, and high-level plenary sessions. ICC Secretary General John W.H. Denton AO’s launched a new ICC campaign to make technology work for all and joined ICC members and representatives on the ground in Berlin to advocate for more sustainable, secure and inclusive digital policies and a continued multistakeholder approach to

28 November 2019 ICC has published a new toolkit to streamline dispute resolution in relation to climate disputes. Climate change is one of the greatest threats facing our world today—causing a wide range of impacts affecting everyone, everywhere. We can only expect that the number of climate-related disputes will increase in the coming years. So what can individuals, companies and governments do to navigate the complex, myriad risks associated with this global phenomenon? The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) has developed a toolkit to help (and prepare) users and practitioners with these specialised cases to streamline their dispute resolution needs. The