Ismail SELIM

Prof. Dr. Ismail Selim, FCIArb, is an independent arbitrator with extensive experience in complex international commercial and construction disputes, with a particular focus on the Middle East, Africa, and cross-border matters. Throught, almost thirty years of Professional experience, Prof. Selim has assumed different roles in the judiciary, private legal practice, academia, arbitral tribunals, and arbitral institution directorship.

Prof. Selim has acted as arbitrator (President, co-arbitrator, and sole arbitrator) in a wide range of international and domestic arbitrations under the rules of leading institutions, including the ICC, CRCICA, DIAC, DIFC-LCIA, SCC, CAS, ADCCAC, BCDR, GZAC, OAC, LAMC, NSAT and in UNCITRAL ad hoc proceedings. His arbitration experience spans high-value disputes across construction and infrastructure, oil and gas, energy, telecoms, finance, real estate, media, sports, and shareholder and joint-venture disputes, governed by civil law and common law. The applicable laws in these proceedings were Egyptian, Emirati, Saudi, Qatari, Kuwaiti, Bahraini, Lebanese, Iraqi, DIFC, Swiss, Swedish, English and Chinese Laws, and the United Nations Convention on the International Sale of Goods (CISG).

He taught Private International Law and has been teaching Arbitration and ADR at the Sorbonne Law School in Cairo. He is also a CIArb tutor on its approved faculty list and a certified mediator from the London School of Mediation.

Prof. Selim regularly serves as legal expert before arbitral tribunals and state courts, such as the London Commercial Court. Under this capacity, Prof. Selim has opined on Egyptian, Libyan, Kuwaiti and Yemeni Laws. He is also a member of the Expert Committee of the Supreme People’s Court of China.

Prof. Selim is the current president of International Federation of Commercial Arbitration Institutions (IFCAI), the Chair of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (Egypt Branch), the vice-president of the African Arbitration Association (AfAA). He is a member of the Guangzhou Arbitration Commission.

In parallel to his arbitration practice, Dr. Selim is an Associate Professor at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University. He has authored several articles on international arbitration.

Prior to establishing Selim Arbitration in 2026, Dr. Selim served as Director of the Cairo Regional Centre for International Commercial Arbitration (CRCICA) for two consecutive mandates (2017–2025), during which CRCICA received multiple international recognitions and awards. During Dr. Selim’s tenure as Director, the CRCICA issued its Dispute Board Rules in 2021 and its new Arbitration Rules in 2024. Prof. Selim ended his tenure in 2025 with CRCICA achieving a new record of 97 new arbitration cases in a single year.

Prof. Selim has previously practiced as Partner and Head of Dispute Resolution at Nour and Selim in Association with Al Tamimi and Company, Partner at Zulficar & Partners Law Firm. He has also served in the Egyptian judiciary as Civil Judge at Mansoura Primary Court and Senior Public Prosecutor at the office of Prosecutor General of Egypt.