The China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC) was established in 1956 in response to the needs of the country’s foreign economic and trade development. Over the past seventy years, CIETAC has consistently adhered to the service tenet of independence, impartiality, and efficiency in arbitration. It has closely integrated the fulfillment of its mission with serving the national strategy, underpinning China’s high-standard opening-up with professionalism and commitment. From the launch of the “Belt and Road” Initiative in 2013 to the end of 2025, CIETAC has cumulatively accepted 3,826 cases involving the “Belt and Road”, with the amount in dispute exceeding RMB 217.9 billion, covering 113 participating countries and regions. The arbitral awards have been widely recognized and enforced around the world, providing significant legal support for promoting the high-quality development of the Belt and Road cooperation.
To thoroughly implement the strategic deployment of “taking a coordinated approach to the rule of law at home and in matters involving foreign parties”, and to further bring into full play the safeguarding role of the rule of law in the Belt and Road cooperation, CIETAC has decided to launch the call for nominations for the Top Ten Typical Cases of “Belt and Road” International Commercial Arbitration. This is to systematically summarize the legal practices of Chinese arbitration in “Belt and Road” dispute resolution, distill representative and pioneering adjudication principles, provide compliance guidance for Chinese and foreign market participants in the “Belt and Road” construction, and demonstrate to the world the positive image of Chinese arbitration in equal protection and openness and inclusiveness.
The relevant matters are hereby notified as follows:
I. Scope and Eligibility for Assessment
The cases eligible for assessment must be arbitration cases concluded by CIETAC during the period from the proposal of the “Belt and Road” Initiative to October 2025, and must have a connecting factor with the participating countries or regions of the “Belt and Road”.
The candidate cases should focus on dispute resolution practices and demonstrate a certain degree of typicality, innovativeness, and reference value in arbitration procedure or substantive handling. This includes, but is not limited to:
• Offering practical guidance or reference for cross-border dispute resolution;
• Possessing academic or reference value in substantive issues such as legal application and adjudication reasoning;
• Featuring procedural highlights in areas such as jurisdiction determination, procedure management, and application of evidence rules that are worthy of summarization and promotion.
II. Generation of Candidate Cases
Candidate cases for this activity will be produced through recommendations from recommending entities, including all departments of the CIETAC headquarters, its branches and arbitration centers, arbitrators, parties, case managers, as well as local lawyers associations, enterprise associations, industry associations, etc. (hereinafter collectively referred to as “recommending entities”). Each recommending entity may, based on its own experience or knowledge, recommend no more than five cases by completing the recommendation form (details in the attachment) and sending it to the designated email address.
III. Assessment Process
The assessment process combines expert review with online voting. CIETAC will take the lead in organizing a review working group and a review committee to conduct two rounds of professional evaluation—preliminary review and final review—on all recommended cases.
The review working group will screen all recommended cases, select 30 to 50 cases for the first-round shortlist, anonymize and summarize the shortlisted cases to produce case outlines suitable for external release, and submit them to the review committee for scoring.
The review committee, composed of mid-level and senior leaders of CIETAC as well as senior arbitrators and other professionals, will be responsible for evaluating and scoring the initial shortlist of 30-50 cases, from which 15-20 cases will be selected to proceed to the online voting stage.
Online voting will be conducted among arbitrators, case handlers, reviewers, etc. The Top Ten Cases will be determined based on the online voting results and the review committee’s scores, with weights of 20% and 80% respectively.
IV. Release of Cases
The final Top Ten Typical Cases of “Belt and Road” International Commercial Arbitration will be publicly released during the China Arbitration Week in September 2026.
V. Utilization of Outcomes
The selected Top Ten Cases and other outstanding cases will be compiled into a volume and published in accordance with CIETAC’s established practices for case compilation. They will also be released and promoted on the CIETAC website and related online platforms.
VI. Timeline
(I) Recommendation Phase (from the date of this notice until July 10, 2026)
Recommending entities shall package and send the electronic recommendation materials (see the attachment: “Recommendation Form for the Top Ten Typical Cases of ‘Belt and Road’ International Commercial Arbitration”) to [ ]@cietac.org before 24:00 on July 10, 2026. The email subject line should follow the format: “Case Selection-[Case Number (e.g. DX20001100)]-[Recommender Information] (e.g.: Case Selection-DX20000000 Engineering Contract Dispute-Applicant Company A)”.
(II) Assessment Phase (June 30, 2026 – September 5, 2026)
CIETAC will lead the review working group and review committee in conducting the two rounds of professional review. Candidate cases will be scored independently, objectively, and fairly according to unified scoring standards. Shortlisted cases will undergo limited-scope online voting. The Top Ten Cases will ultimately be determined based on a comprehensive consideration of voting results and scores.
(III) Summary and Release Phase (September 15–21, 2026)
(IV) Compilation and Publication (by the end of December 2026)
VII. Contact
Contact Person: Tan Qi
Contact Telephone: 86010-82217612
Email: cases@cietac.org
China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission
June 18, 2026
Source: China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission