Dubai Arbitration Week 2026 runs from 9 to 13 November 2026 across multiple venues in Dubai, anchored by the Dubai International Arbitration Centre. The week is convened by the centre with the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism and has grown into one of the largest gatherings of the international arbitration community anywhere, with law firms, arbitral institutions and corporate legal departments hosting dozens of sessions across the five days.
The programme is decentralised. Law firms and institutions stage their own conferences, panels and receptions under the Arbitration Week banner, and the organising committee, which includes partners from firms such as Freshfields, Morgan Lewis and Greenberg Traurig, coordinates the calendar. Topics span construction and energy disputes, investor state arbitration, the role of the Dubai courts and DIFC courts, enforcement across the Gulf, and the use of technology in proceedings.
Dubai has consolidated its arbitration infrastructure in recent years, with DIAC absorbing earlier institutions and the emirate promoting itself as a seat for disputes arising from the region's construction, energy and investment activity. Arbitration Week is the public expression of that strategy.
For general counsel, chief legal officers and board members with oversight of legal risk, the week is a concentrated opportunity to meet the arbitrators, counsel and institutions that will handle the region's largest commercial disputes. Law firm leaders use it to recruit and to position their Gulf practices. Executives in construction, energy and infrastructure, where disputes are structurally common, will find the substantive sessions a useful reading of how enforcement and procedure are evolving in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
