Smart Contracts and International Arbitration: Home Friends or Foes? Editorial Santiago Rodríguez Senior International Arbitration Insight When arbitration is not voluntary: the case of Mutu and Pechstein v. Switzerland n the midst of the 2008 financial crisis, an anonymous person or a Global Briefing I group of people called Satoshi Nakamoto published a white paper The impact of The Belt and Road Initiative on investment called “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”. This white arbitration paper did not create the concept of blockchain, but it can be considered “What’s in a name?”: NAFTA to have been its iconic debut. Bitcoin presented a novel way to transfer to USMCA and what this money from one part of the world to another in a matter of minutes, without change means for investment intermediaries -costing next to nothing in fees-, and safer than traditional means -i.e., protection wire transfers-. The true success behind Bitcoin is the use of blockchain technology, which is now not only being applied to cryptocurrencies but also to virtually every In Focus industry in the world. Cultural Heritage Considerations in International Investment So, what exactly is a blockchain? A blockchain is understood as a decentralised Arbitration database or ledger that maintains a public, or private, record of transactions. Smart Contracts and Blockchains track each transaction in the chain, and record it in a database that is International Arbitration: decentralised, meaning that it is not stored in only one place. Transactions are stored Friends or Foes? together in a data structure called a “block”, and each block contains a reference point The Achmea decision: that connects it to the last block, thus creating a relationship between the blocks significant uncertainties linger called a “blockchain”. Many industries are already taking advantage of blockchain technology to provide Investment Arbitration: Contact Lawyers customers with transparent information about their products. For example, large supermarket chains are already applying blockchain technology for some of its products. Customers may scan a bar code on certain products, such as chicken, with their smart phone, which will tell them the chicken’s background, such as where the chicken is from, what type of food the chicken ate, what treatments were applied to the chicken, any quality labels, etc. Every stage of the chicken’s life will be quantified in a data structure which will make up a block in the chain. This will create a record that will provide transparent and reliable information about the chicken's quality. www.uria.com 16