New York Arbitration Week 2026: dates, organisers and format

The short version

• New York Arbitration Week (NYAW) is an annual, free week of international-arbitration events held across New York City. It is co-hosted by the New York International Arbitration Center (NYIAC) and the New York Branch of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIArbNY).
• It has run every November since 2019. The 2026 edition is the eighth, under the theme Arbitration in a Changing World: The Road Ahead. The organisers’ save-the-date gives 16 to 20 November 2026, though news items on the same page are dated from 17 November, so confirm the dates on the official site.
• It is not one conference. It is a shared calendar of sessions that law firms, institutions and other organisations each host, coordinated by a joint organising committee.
• Attendance is free unless a session says otherwise. Because the sessions are hosted separately, you register for each one rather than buying a single pass. Most programmes have offered continuing legal education (CLE) credit, the training hours lawyers in many United States jurisdictions must earn, in past years.
• The week closes with the Fordham Conference on International Arbitration and Mediation, run by Fordham Law School. For the other weeks on the circuit, see arbitration weeks around the world.^{1,2,4,5,6,8,9}

What is New York Arbitration Week?

New York Arbitration Week is an annual, week-long series of international-arbitration programmes held across New York City. “NYAW” is its common short form. The sessions run under one banner, but many different organisations host them, rather than one host staging a single conference. New York is one of the leading seats for international arbitration. A seat is the legal home of an arbitration: the place whose arbitration law and courts govern the process. This guide covers the event; the law of a New York-seated arbitration is in our guide to arbitration in New York.^1,2,4

The week is decentralised. It is a shared banner over programmes that firms, institutions and groups put on themselves, not a schedule built by one host. It also sits on a wider circuit of arbitration weeks that now runs through much of the year, from Paris in spring to London in December. For how the weeks compare, see arbitration weeks around the world, and for the wider picture of seats and bodies, dispute resolution around the world.^8,9

Who runs New York Arbitration Week?

New York Arbitration Week is co-hosted by NYIAC and CIArbNY, working through a joint New York Arbitration Week Organizing Committee. The two bodies have led the week together since it began, and both are named on the current edition as its co-presenters.^2,4

NYIAC is the New York International Arbitration Center, “a non-profit organization formed to advance, strengthen, and promote the conduct of international arbitration in New York”. It runs hearing rooms and public programmes in the city. It is not an arbitral institution in the usual sense of that term: an arbitral institution is a body that administers cases under its own rules and appoints arbitrators, and NYIAC does neither. CIArbNY is the New York Branch of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, representing the Institute across New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. The Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIArb) is the London parent body, a membership charity for people who work in dispute resolution.^1,4,9

We do not name the committee members here. The organisers describe a committee made up of members “from across the globe”, which they say reflects the week’s aim of engaging the international arbitration community in every region. Chairs and officers change from year to year.^7,9

When is New York Arbitration Week 2026?

New York Arbitration Week 2026 (NYAW 2026) is set for 16 to 20 November 2026, the eighth edition. That is the date on NYIAC’s save-the-date for the week, under the theme Arbitration in a Changing World: The Road Ahead.²

Treat that date with a little care. NYIAC’s save-the-date gives 16 to 20 November 2026, while news items on the same page are dated 17 and 18 November 2026, so the exact start of the week is given inconsistently. The dedicated programme site could not be opened when we checked on 10 November 2026, so we could not confirm a formal day-by-day there. For the live schedule, the official site is the place to look. As in earlier years, the organising committee issues an open call for proposals and host organisations set their own sessions, so the programme fills in through the autumn rather than from one central schedule.^2,3,8

How is the week structured, and is it free?

The week is free to attend. The organisers say that “unless otherwise noted, attendance at all NYAW events is free of charge”. It is built from many sessions that different organisations host independently at venues across New York City, and you register for each session on its own rather than buying one pass for the week.^7,9

The format is in person. The organising committee issues an open call for proposals each year, and member organisations run the sessions that make up the week. Programmes are aimed at practitioners, in-house counsel, academics and neutrals (the arbitrators and mediators who decide or help settle disputes). Past themes show the range: the 2022 week asked who is in charge of an arbitration, and the 2023 week marked its fifth year around New York law and arbitration.^2,7,8

The week’s capstone, the session that closes it, is the Fordham Conference on International Arbitration and Mediation, run by Fordham Law School. In past years most programmes have offered CLE credit, but this varies by session and we have not confirmed it for 2026. One practical note on finding the week online: its main official site is moving from nyarbitrationweek.com, which still shows the 2025 edition, to ny-arbitration-week.com, so a search can land you on the older page.^2,3,4,6

When did New York Arbitration Week start?

New York Arbitration Week started in 2019. NYIAC and CIArbNY announced the formation of their joint organising committee on 22 July 2019 and launched what they called the “3-day inaugural event” that November. The two bodies have co-hosted every edition since.⁴

The inaugural dates come in two forms in the organisers’ own materials. The launch release billed the first week as 20 to 22 November 2019. The official look-back for 2019 shows programmes running across 19 to 22 November, with opening cocktails on the 19th and the Fordham capstone on the 22nd. Both are from NYAW’s own records, so we give both. Each year since has run in November, and 2026 is billed as the eighth edition, which lines up with 2019 as year one.^2,4,5

The week has grown across those editions. The organisers called the 2021 edition the week’s biggest yet, reporting “the highest ever attendance, the most speakers, the greatest number of panels, presentations and participating organizations” against earlier years. We do not headline the year-by-year attendance, speaker and sponsor counts the organisers have published for some editions; the point here is the growth they describe, not a running headcount, and those figures are year-specific and not confirmed for later editions.⁶

How is the week different from New York as an arbitral seat?

The week is an event; the seat is a legal status. Attending New York Arbitration Week is not the same as seating a dispute in New York. The seat decides which arbitration law and which courts govern a case. For a New York-seated arbitration, that law and those courts, including the Federal Arbitration Act, Article 75 of New York’s Civil Practice Law and Rules, and the New York Convention on enforcing foreign awards, are set out and sourced in our guide to arbitration in New York; this guide stays on the event.¹

The 2026 programme ties into the wider circuit through one running theme: a field that is changing, and the place of AI in it. What institutions and courts actually say about AI in arbitration is in our guide to AI in arbitration, and the broader view across mediation and other forums is in AI in dispute resolution.²

What do these weeks tell us about where arbitration is heading?

In our view, the arbitration weeks are where the field works out its own direction in the open, and New York Arbitration Week is a clear case. The same questions return across its programmes: the cost of arbitration, the delay, access to it, the competition between seats, and now the use of AI. The 2026 theme, Arbitration in a Changing World: The Road Ahead, names that directly. The format carries its own signal. A free, decentralised week, co-hosted by NYIAC and CIArbNY and built from sessions that many separate organisations run, has held together and grown to an eighth edition since 2019. Read alongside the other weeks on the circuit, it points to a field under pressure to resolve more disputes, more predictably, and on a better-documented record, across jurisdictions. These weeks raise those questions more than they answer them, and they are worth following for anyone who works in this area. For how the whole circuit lines up, see arbitration weeks around the world.^2,4,8