Haya Bint Rashed Al-Khalifa

Chairperson (since 2009)

Shaikha Haya bint Rashed Al Khalifa is the senior and founding partner of the Haya Rashed Al Khalifa Law Office in the Kingdom of Bahrain. She is an arbitrator and a lawyer licensed before the Court of Cassation and the Constitutional Court in Bahrain.

She specializes in banking law, Islamic banking, construction law, intellectual property law, corporate law, commercial law, and international commercial arbitration. During her career spanning more than forty years as an attorney, she participated in many local and international arbitration cases. She was a former vice president of the Bahraini Bar Association.

Shaikha Haya Al Khalifa holds a number of positions in several international arbitration centers. She is a member of the board of trustees of the Cairo Regional Centre for International Commercial Arbitration (CRCICA), a member of the international consultative committee of the International Center for Dispute Resolution (ICDR/AAA), a former member of the board of trustees of the Dubai International Arbitration Centre (DIAC), a former member of the International Arbitration Court of the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris (ICC), and a former chairman of the ICC National Committee of the International Chamber of Commerce in Bahrain.

She was a member of the Bahraini diplomatic corps, where she served as the Ambassador to France and a non-resident Ambassador to Belgium, Switzerland, and Spain from 2000 to 2004. Her diplomatic career culminated in her election as President of the General Assembly of the United Nations at its sixty-first session from 2006 to 2007. She was only the third woman to be elected to that international post.