Steve Yusem, one of the area’s leading and most respected Arbitrators and Neutrals, recently taught a course in international commercial arbitration at the Royal University for Women (RUW) located in Riffa at the invitation of the Kingdom of Bahrain. RUW was founded in 2002 by His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa as one of only two law schools in the world teaching women exclusively.The Fulbright Specialist Program of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the Department of State, under whose auspices Mr. Yusem travelled serving as a Fulbright Specialist, promotes linkages between U.S. professionals and their counterparts at host institutions around the world.
In Bahrain, law is taught at a 4-year undergraduate level, after which graduates may be licensed to practice throughout the Kingdom or to apply for positions at such international institutions as the United Nations and the European Union. Mr. Yusem collaborated with the RUW law faculty to focus on training students to participate in the 27th Annual Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot at Vienna. In addition to international commercial arbitration, he taught the American arbitration process.
Mr. Yusem previously taught arbitration in Mongolia, Macedonia and Iran. Said Yusem, “In light of the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, which has been endorsed by more than 150 nations, and the technological revolution, as well as the progressive globalization of commerce, it is vital that the international arbitration process be well understood.”
Mr. Yusem has been actively engaged in arbitration for more than 40 years. Whether serving under the auspices of the American Arbitration Association (AAA) or as an ad hoc individual Neutral, he has adjudicated commercial, construction and other disputes as a sole arbitrator or as an arbitration panelist. He is a fellow of both the prestigious 200-member College of Commercial Arbitrators and the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators having completed an intensive training course at Keble College, Oxford University. He is a past-chair of the Pennsylvania Bar Association Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee and served as a moving force in the enactment of the Pennsylvania Revised Uniform Arbitration Act. He also serves as a mediator having been certified by the Center for Excellence in Dispute Resolution (CEDR) in London. A graduate of Cornell University (B.A., Economics), Mr. Yusem earned his law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
