A student in Miami Law’s international arbitration program introduced the first blockchain application specifically designed to improve the processes of international conflict resolution at a UM-organized conference in Brazil last week.
The Smart Arbitration & Mediation Blockchain Application, or SAMBA, was developed by the newly formed Miami Blockchain Group, a legal tech startup co-founded by CEO Alexander Fischetti, a member of Miami Law’s White & Case International Arbitration LL.M.
“International arbitration has been crucial for international peace and economic growth, specifically because it provides the global marketplace with a mechanism to resolve disputes efficiently with due process and in a manner of their own choosing,” Fischetti said before heading to the 2018 Global Legal Institute for Peace Conference.
“However, in recent years, international dispute resolution systems have been faced with challenges that are causing the process to be increasingly time consuming and expensive for the parties involved, which hinders international trade relations. Our goal in developing SAMBA is to address these challenges with blockchain-based applications to reinforce the idea that efficiency in international dispute resolution is essential to the functionality of the global economy.”
Blockchain technology, which was originally developed as the accounting method for the virtual currency Bitcoin, creates an indelible, digitized and decentralized public ledger, usually of economic transactions, but can be programmed to record virtually anything of value.
The conference, which focused on how cryptocurrency, or digital assets designed to work as a medium of exchange, can help resolve international disputes, was held March 14 at the University of São Paulo, where the University of Miami International Arbitration Institute and the Global Institute for Peace and the Conflict Resolution Center presented “Blockchain Revealed: Conflict Resolution at the Onset of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.”
Leading arbitration practitioners, academics, cryptocurrency experts, computer engineers, and representatives of the World Economic Forum gathered in São Paulo to discuss the future for the peaceful resolution of international disputes and to probe the lessons learned from arbitration’s legacy, beginning with the first Industrial Revolution and now heading into the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which is building on the digital revolution that began in middle of the last century. Speakers discussed how these lessons can make a positive impact on dispute resolution in a changing global marketplace, impacted by the ongoing digital revolution.
“If the international community sees profit in peaceful commerce, it is less likely to disrupt global trade by fighting wars,” said Marike Paulsson, vice president of the Global Legal Institute for Peace (GLIP) and the Conflict Resolution Center and director of Miami Law’s International Arbitration Institute. “That was the thinking after the devastation of World War I. GLIP is built on that premise.”
Apart from the unveiling of SAMBA, the conference featured the launch of a working group by GLIP with the support of the University of Miami and the University of São Paolo. The working group will conduct empirical research and focus on scholarship in relation to the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the use of technology in peaceful commercial and alternative dispute resolution.
Paulsson concluded the conference with resolutions drafted for GLIP and Miami Blockchain.
