Life Member
David W. Rivkin
New York, NY
Arbitration Chambers
Yale College
Yale Law School
David W. Rivkin has long been recognized as a global leader in international arbitration. For more than 40 years, Mr. Rivkin practiced private and public international law at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, where he served as Co-Chair of its International Dispute Resolution Group for more than 20 years and was a founder of its Business Integrity/ESG Group. He now serves as a full-time arbitrator and mediator, bringing that experience to benefit parties in these cases. As at Debevoise, his practice focuses on complex international commercial arbitrations and investor-state disputes. He has worked under common law, civil law and Islamic law systems, and he has particular experience in the energy, pharmaceutical, technology and finance sectors, among others. Chambers Global 2022 identified him as one of the top 10 arbitration practitioners worldwide.
In 2015-16, Mr. Rivkin served as President of the International Bar Association, the first American to serve as president in 25 years. As IBA President, he led projects on business and human rights, climate change justice, judicial integrity, human trafficking and corruption, and the independence of the legal profession, among others.
In addition, he has held prominent positions in arbitration institutions, government committees and other NGOs across the world. He has served in leadership positions in arbitration institutions on virtually every continent. Currently, he is the Co-Chair of the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre, among other positions.
Mr. Rivkin was elected to The American Law Institute in 1997 and to the ALI Council in 2009. He chairs ALI’s advisory group on international members and serves as one of eight Counselors for the Restatement of the Law Fourth, The Foreign Relations Law of the United States. He is also an Adviser on the Restatement of the Law, The U.S. Law of International Commercial Arbitration project. Previously he was an Adviser on the Transnational Rules of Civil Procedure project. He received his undergraduate and law degrees from Yale.
