AAIL - Key Persons
Professor Albert Jan van den Berg is a sought-after presiding and party-appointed arbitrator in numerous international commercial and investment arbitrations. He also acts as counsel in international commercial arbitrations and in set aside proceedings. Professor van den Berg is Honorary President of the International Council for Commercial Arbitration, having served as President from 2014 to 2016. He is Distinguished Faculty Co-Chair of the LL.M. in International Arbitration Program at the School of Law, University of Miami, and a Visiting Professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, National University of Singapore's Faculty of Law, and Tsinghua University's School of Law.
Dr Bernasconi took the office of Secretary General of the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) on 1 July 2013. In 2018, he was reappointed for a further term of five years; in March 2023, the Council on General Affairs and Policy of the HCCH recommended that he be reappointed for another five-year term. Dr Bernasconi had joined the Permanent Bureau (PB) in September 1997 and became Deputy Secretary General in July 2011.
He holds a law degree from Fribourg University in Switzerland (magna cum laude; bilingual in German and French), an LL.M. degree in Comparative Law from McGill University in Montreal, Canada (concentration on International Commercial Law, with a Master's thesis on oligopolies in unfair competition law), and a doctoral degree in Private International Law from Fribourg University (summa cum laude).
He has been actively involved in numerous normative projects and non-normative activities of the HCCH, covering the full range of its mandate, from transnational litigation and Apostille, to international family and child protection law, as well as commercial, digital and finance law. He also designed and administered the successful electronic Apostille Programme (e-APP). As Secretary General, he is focusing on the good governance and strategic development of the HCCH, spearheading efforts towards its universality and inclusiveness.
Professor Ignacio Tirado was appointed Secretary-General by the Governing Council at its 97 th session and officially took office on 27 August 2018. A national of Spain, Professor Tirado (Commercial, Corporate and Insolvency Law, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain) holds a Ph.D. from the Universities of Bologna and Autónoma de Madrid and an LL.M. from the University of London. Professor Tirado has been a Senior Legal Consultant at the World Bank's Legal Vice-Presidency and Financial Sector Practice for more than nine years, having also consulted for the IMF on insolvency related matters as well as for the Asian Development Bank on commercial legal reform.
Amongst other accolades to his professional experience, Professor Tirado is Founding Member of the European Banking Institute, Member of the Expert Group of the European Commission on insolvency reform, Vice President of the Conference on European Restructuring and Insolvency Law (CERIL), former Vice-President of the International Insolvency Institute, and Member of the American College of Bankruptcy.
Job Titles:
- Co - Convenor )
- Deputy Secretary - General and Co - Convenor of the Advisory Board
Adrian is a practising barrister, arbitrator, accredited mediator and certified public accountant. He is instructed as Counsel in a wide range of civil contentious matters, with particular focuses on arbitration, professional negligence and disciplinary matters. He sits as arbitrator - sole arbitrator, co-arbitrator or presiding arbitrator - in international commercial arbitrations conducted under various rules including those of HKIAC, CIETAC, ICC and UNCITRAL. He is named on the panels of many arbitral bodies. In addition to international commercial arbitrations, he has also participated in investor-State arbitrations and State-to-State arbitrations.
Adrian is a designated national correspondent of China to the UNCITRAL, reporting on the Hong Kong SAR's implementation of the New York Convention and the UNCITRAL Model Law (as adopted in the Arbitration Ordinance). He also sits on the Advisory Committee on Promotion of Arbitration of the Department of Justice of the Hong Kong SAR.
Adrian has keen academic interest in international law, which is beneficial to his handling of cases involving points of international law. In his capacity as the Deputy Secretary General of Asian Academy of International Law, Adrian participates as an observer in the work of the UNCITRAL Working Group III on Investor-State Dispute Settlement Reform.
Job Titles:
- Senior Counsel, Chartered Engineer, Chartered Arbitrator
Teresa Cheng is a Senior Counsel, Chartered Engineer, Chartered Arbitrator and Accredited Mediator, with a distinguished record of public service in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR). From January 2018 to June 2022, Ms Cheng was the Secretary for Justice of the Hong Kong SAR.
Ms Cheng specialises in a wide range of legal areas, including construction, international commercial contracts and investment arbitration, and is an experienced practitioner in international arbitration and mediation. She is frequently engaged as counsel or arbitrator in complex international commercial / investment disputes.
She is one of the founder members of the Asian Academy of International Law (AAIL), Past Vice President of the International Council of Commercial Arbitration (ICCA), Past Vice President of the ICC International Court of Arbitration, and Past Chairperson of Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (HKIAC). In 2008, she became the first Asian woman elected through a global election as President of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIArb). She served as Deputy Judge/Recorder in the High Court of Hong Kong from 2011 to 2017, and she was also a member of the World Bank's Sanctions Board.
Ms Cheng is a Fellow of King's College in London, and she established the International Arbitration and Dispute Settlement Course at the Law School of Tsinghua University in Beijing, China and was the Course Director.