Data Protection and Cybersecurity in Arbitration: Risks and Opportunities | (Luther Lecture)

In April 2022, the Center for International Dispute Resolution welcomed Prof. Dr. Jacques de Werra to deliver the 2022 Luther Dispute Resolution Lecture on the topic of
Data Protection and Cybersecurity in Arbitration: Risks and Opportunities
Data protection and cybersecurity have become top policy priorities in our digital interconnected world. This also affects the arbitration community as data protection and cybersecurity issues can arise in arbitration proceedings which may require adopting measures to manage them as well as the risks associated to them. However, data protection and cybersecurity can also offer opportunities for arbitration: disputes about data (“data disputes”) and about cybersecurity might be submitted to arbitration under certain conditions. In view of the emerging European data policy ecosystem (in which data sharing will intensify as a result of the upcoming Data Governance Act), it appears likely that more data disputes - and more data arbitration cases - will arise in the future. In his lecture, Prof. Jacques de Werra discussed these risks and opportunities of data protection and cybersecurity in arbitration.
Jacques de Werra is Professor and Director of the Digital Law Center at the University of Geneva, where he teaches contract law, intellectual property (IP) law and digital law. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Lausanne and an LL.M. degree from Columbia Law School. Professor de Werra has previously also worked at leading law firms in Switzerland, the U.S. and Belgium. He was visiting professor at Harvard Law School (Hieken Visiting Professor in Patent Law), Stanford Law School and City University of Hong Kong. He lectures, researches, publishes and consults on contract law, IP law and digital law, has widely published in leading law journals and is a panelist at the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center as well as on the roster of IP arbitrators of the Hong Kong International Arbitration Center.