With this Festschrift, the Bahrain Chamber for Dispute Resolution (BCDR-AAA) is starting a tradition of honoring Arab scholars and practitioners who promote international arbitration and international law. Over the last few decades, international arbitration institutions and international law societies have generously acknowledged the work of leading scholars and practitioners from the region. The time has come, however, for these individuals to be honored by institutions within the region.

It should come as no surprise that the BCDR-AAA is dedicating this first Festschrift to Professor Dr. Ahmed El-Kosheri. His immense contributions to international commercial arbitration, international investment arbitration, and international law more broadly, as well as his significant influence on a generation of lawyers and students from the Arab region and beyond, fully justify this choice.

As a testament to Dr. El-Kosheri's remarkable career, broad intellectual horizons and extensive geographical reach, the Festschrift includes contributions from forty-six authors-judges, arbitrators, practitioners and scholars-representing twenty-one nationalities from the Middle East, North and Western Africa, East Asia, Europe, and North and South America, who wrote on topics as diverse as international arbitration and ADR mechanisms, international investment law, public international law (including international administrative law), and private international law in Arabic, English, and French.

One can hardly think of another Arab figure who has done more than Dr. El-Kosheri to strengthen international law while bridging legal-cultural divides between the Arab region and the rest of the world. He will undoubtedly continue to inspire many generations to come.