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Clyde & Co has joined the DIS (German Arbitration Institute) / ERA Pledge Gender Champion initiative in order to raise awareness of gender equality in international arbitration

Specifically, through this initiative, law firms and organisations that join the initiative appoint Gender Champions, who are responsible for liaising with the DIS and for collecting and monitoring anonymous statistical data regarding the appointment of women arbitrators by institutions, parties or co-arbitrators. 

The process is designed to improve the number of appointments of women from party and co-arbitrator nominations in DIS arbitrations.

Source: DIS and ERA Pledge

Through data collected by both Era Pledge and the DIS, the number of women within arbitral institutions has increased considerably, making up 35% of staff in arbitral institutions in 2018 to 53.3% in 2020. 

In turn, an increase in female co-arbitrators has been observed. While in 2018 among all co-arbitrators, 11.3% of them were women, in 2020, 15.2% of all co-arbitrators were women.

Other data that adds value to the increase of female presence in refereeing is the appointment of referees. While in 2018 it was recorded that among all selected arbitrators, 12.4% of them were women, in 2020 this record increased and of all selected arbitrators, 20.8% were women.

In addition to Clyde & Co, many other relevant firms in the legal sector have supported this initiative, such as Linklaters, Orrick, Baker & McKenzie, Clifford Chance, among others.