Dr Briner's re-election coincides with the appointment to the court of some 39 new members from 34 different countries. Costa Rica, Cuba, Lithuania and Mongolia will be represented for the first time on the court. The court now boasts 113 members from 77 countries.

Court members are drawn from a pool of international business and legal professionals. They follow the progress of each case brought before the court and review the awards in order to facilitate their enforcement by the parties.

Commenting on the increasingly international composition of the court's membership, Dr Briner said: "It strengthens the court's reputation as the most accessible, efficient and authoritative forum for the resolution of commercial disputes in the world."

"We have always prided ourselves on being the most international of any arbitration service. The number of nationalities represented by ICC court members is unrivalled, the variety of professional backgrounds from which they come and the diversity of legal systems they represent has no equal."

"Parties to ICC arbitration cases come from all continents and can be confident that their case will be administered by the court without any national or cultural bias" Dr Briner added.

"In an increasingly globalised world, the ability to work across cultures, in a variety of languages and within a range of legal structures gives the ICC International Court of Arbitration a breadth of experience to perform its tasks which simply cannot be matched."

Dr Briner, a Swiss national and an internationally-recognised arbitrator, said he was honoured to have been re-elected Chairman of the ICC International Court of Arbitration.

"It is a privilege, and an enormous challenge, to be charged with leadership of this great institution for another three years," he said. "I look forward to continuing to build on the court's already impressive international stature.

"Supported by the International Secretariat of the court in Paris composed of more than 50 staff members from 21 different countries and speaking approximately 20 languages, ICC will strive to continue providing efficient commercial dispute resolution services anywhere in the world."