About
Why - A Transnational Dispute Management Intelligence Service?
With accelerated economic globalisation, transnational disputes - cross-border, cross-cultural, cross-disciplinary and involving national and international levels of law and regulation - have grown in leaps and bounds. And so have methods and markets of specialists to manage them.
International commercial arbitration is now the preferred, widely practiced and rapidly growing way to resolve such disputes in a quasi-judicial way. Investment arbitration ("arbitrage transnational") is the new and also rapidly growing way to determine disputes between foreign investors and governments over alleged regulatory misconduct. ADR is being proposed - and to some extent (in particular by myself) practised as a more cost-efficient and a much more value-creating and more commercially and managerially appropriate way to resolve dispute. Early dispute management systems are built in from the start into the contractual and institutional mechanisms of complex transnational business transactions.
To provide intelligence on these developments is the principal objective of our new service - the global transnational dispute management portal - is to provide rapid updates on new developments, insights and comments (rather than only description) from professionals able to impart a keen analysis of the development and its implications, we will publish comments of any length which are of quality and relevance, both original and new brief comments and we will try to identify and publish relevant, in-depth and authoritative works already published in less accessible publications, in academic institutes, through law firms, on the internet or less familiar journals, academic reviews and professional newsletters.
There are a number of high-quality arbitration reviews around; Transnational Dispute Management is not meant to compete or replace them, but rather focus on being very up-to-date, internet-based intelligence and insight - with its great potential for user-friendly, rapid and effective searches and availability of large databases to our users. TDM will also provide a rapidly growing database of relevant pre-published articles and of primary legal and regulatory materials.
Finally, TDM is not meant to be just "another international arbitration" journal, but rather a combination of newsletter, review-journal, internet service and primary materials database which goes across disciplines - law, psychology-psychoanalysis, international business management, economics, arbitration, WTO, international investment law, and across the various areas of "dispute management" - rather than just quasi-judicial conventional "resolution" of disputes in litigation. As a result, we will emphasise mediation/ADR, conflict avoidance and commercial conflict management by bilateral negotiation or by third-party facilitated negotiation.
Providing a global overview
There are both practical challenges in the fields of commercial and investment arbitration - where the law is currently evolving rapidly, and political challenges - based on sovereignty-based criticism of investment arbitration or on criticism of all arbitration as not providing equal justice in factual terms. Similarly, the normative framework of ADR/mediation approaches is not well settled. Different regions in the world, and different industries and communities take often widely divergent approaches. TDM has been launched in order to offer a global overview, and to provide more detailed identification and analysis of specific instruments that have a wide relevance.
Our first priority is to inform reliably and rapidly on matters of professional relevance; secondly to obtain in-depth studies of intellectual excellence. But is also meant to be a "wide church": We want to be a forum for debate between divergent views and various communities. Both arbitration and mediation practitioners, but also treaty negotiators, NGOs should be represented. The ultimate ambition, naturally, is to provide the single global portal for transnational dispute management and thus an essential, inevitable place for information and debate.
Other information sources
Information on such developments is currently available from a number of sources: academic/professional journals (such as Arbitration International, The Journal of International Arbitration or the Journal of World Investment and Trade); high-quality newspapers (such as, in particular, the Financial Times or the Wallstreet Journal); legal information services (eg Lexis-Nexis), occasional and sometimes excellent newsletters produced by international law firms; the arbitration news (Mealy's international arbitration reports) and others) or region-focused services.
If one follows the internet and subscribes to special regional services, one can also keep abreast of developments. Official reports are a useful source, but they are often too long and detailed, and not easily available in a "digest" format.
Adding value
TDM desires to add significant value to all of these sources. It is closely linked to OGEMID, the principal internet information & discussion forum in the area of oil, gas, energy, mining, infrastructure and investment disputes. It is also affiliated with the International Business Transactions Programme of CEPMLP/University of Dundee where we are currently building a world-class certificate, diploma and Master programme in transnational dispute management. TDM will use the full potential of the internet and web-based data management to provide both a short newsletter, but also access to an extensive, and rapidly growing, database of "primary legal/regulatory" materials. It includes short notes and Summaries - but with access to more comprehensive, in-depth studies and relevant primary material. The emphasis is not on a compilation of "clippings" from newspapers, trade journals and the internet - as valuable as these are as a rapid item of information, but rather on "intelligence", i.e. comment on the true significance, the essential elements and the wider implications of current developments written by oil-gas-energy lawyers and regulation specialists with an in-depth understanding of what a new development means - rather than just the reproduction of a press release.
TDM will also include a selection of what we think are the most relevant recent publications (articles, notes, case reports, official international agency reports).
Open to all to read and to contribute
We would like TDM to become the hub of a global professional and academic network. We therefore invite all those with an interest in transnational economic, commercial and financial disputes to contribute. We are looking mainly for short comments on recent developments of broad interest. We would like where possible such comments to be backed-up by provision of in-depth notes and articles (which we will publish in our "knowledge bank") and primary legal and regulatory materials. Please contact me if you want to participate in this global network: we are ready to publish contributions with name, photo, and brief biographical description - but we will also accept anonymous ones.
TDM Products & Services
The TDM intelligence service offers the following Services & Products:
| TDM Journal | |
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The TDM Journal comprising an extensive series of concise abstracts and a select number of full "lead" articles. The emphasis is not on a compilation of 'clippings' from newspapers, trade journals and the internet - as valuable as these are as a rapid item of information, but rather on 'intelligence & insight', i.e. comment on the true significance, the essential elements and the wider implications of current developments written by lawyers and dispute management specialists with an in-depth understanding of what a new development means - rather than just the reproduction of a press release. TDM also includes a selection of what we think are the most relevant recent publications (articles, notes, case reports, official international agency reports). The TDM Journal can be downloaded as a PDF-file from the website. E-mail is used to notify registered users of new TDM-editions and its index. The Journal is published on a bi-monthly basis aiming at approximate 6 issues per year. The TDM Journal includes inter alia an extensive series of concise abstracts. Most abstracts contain hyperlinks to more extensive and full articles, notes, comments and primary law, written by expert lawyers and regulation specialists. The Editor will also select key discussion comments from the most relevant internet forums, in particular OGEMID (oil-gas-energy-mining-infrastructure & investment disputes). As part of the subscription users can access and download these full articles from the TDM website. To summarise:
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| TDM Journal Archive | |
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Access to the TDM Journal Archive, our database of past TDM Journals, an internet-based journal of longer articles, studies, and notes, providing ample options for cross-searching the TDM Journals and bibliographic references. This TDM Journal Archive also contains a selection based on the most relevant articles published on internet and other journals over the last 5 years. So, not only you will have access to articles that have been published in TDM, but also too articles that appeared in relevant Dispute Management & Arbitration Journals and other Publications before 2004. TDM was launched in January 2004. It is growing rapidly and will constitute the core of the searchable TDM intelligence on all subjects. |
| TDM Legal & Regulatory Materials | |
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Access to a database of Legal and Regulatory Materials, a growing collection of: laws, regulations, contracts, guidelines, tribunal/court awards. The database already contains a large collection of laws, treaties, agreements, awards and other primary materials. It will mainly focus on Investment Arbitraton Awards, Cases and other Awards. As it grows, it will form one of the most valuable assets of the TDM subscription. Different from existing services, this "TDM knowledge bank" will focus in particular on the inclusion of authoritative "soft" regulatory materials - voluntary codes, guidelines, standards, resolutions and declarations. Both the impact of the NGO "civil society" , the corporate governance and the professional communities will be reflected in the "soft" regulation database. To summarise:
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| TDM Bibliography | |
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Each TDM Journal has a number of pages with bibliographic references. These bibliographies are prepared by our Assistant Editors and can be read online or downloaded as seperate articles. Bibliographies regarding certain topics are updated regularly and available for download to our subscribers. |
| OGEMID | |
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OGEMID (oil gas energy infrastructure and investment disputes) is an internet-based intelligence service and discussion group for posting news and comment and engaging in debate. Moderated by our Editor-in-Chief, Professor Thomas W. Wälde, it is co-sponsored by CEPMLP/Dundee (www.cepmlp.org) and TDM (www.transnational-dispute-management.com) in collaboration with OGEL (www.gasandoil.com/ogel). OGEMID was set up originally as a discussion group with CEPMLP PhD students, CEPMLP staff and - select - alumni and a small number of external colleagues. It has now developed from about 25 members to well over 600. Requests for admissions are received on a daily basis as it is seen as one of the most effective (if not the most effective) way of keeping abreast of recent developments in the specialised field it covers. OGEMID brings together most of the world's experienced professionals in the field of international dispute management, mainly arbitration, mediation, negotiation, with a particular emphasis on investment disputes. OGEMID members are now the most up-to-date informed professionals in these fields. We offer institutional TDM subscribers the benefit of a related membership on OGEMID. Each subscribing company or organisation to TDM, is permitted to sign up 3 of its employees as participants in OGEMID, renewable annually if the subscription is renewed. |
| Discount on Oxford University Press books | |
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Oxford University Press and MARIS (publisher of Transnational Dispute Management)
are pleased to introduce a special 20% discount offer on the purchase of new and recent international
law books from OUP available to all TDM/OGEMID members.
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ISSN
The Transnational Dispute Management ISSN number: 1875-4120
Subscribe & Sample issues
Free sample issues
Download our first two issues, they are free.
Supported by...
The Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy at the University of Dundee
(www.cepmlp.org), the world's leading graduate
school in energy/natural resources, has the following Masters of Business Administration (MBA) programs:
- Full-Time Masters of Business Administration (MBA) in Oil and Gas Management
- Full-Time Masters of Business Administration (MBA) in International Business Transactions
The International Bar Association
supports the TDM initiative.
TDM offers a special discount of 15% on the subscription fees for members of IBA/SEERIL.
