Syed Muaz Shah
Syed Muaz Shah has nearly 25 years of mediation practice from the United States to UAE to Pakistan. He is a registered attorney within Pakistan with the Sindh Bar Council and practices in criminal and civil litigation. He has helped contribute to legislative reforms in Pakistan around ADR since 2014 in the following legislations: (i) ADR Act 2017, (ii) The Code Of Civil Procedure (Sindh Amendment) Act, 2018 (Sindh Act No. IV of 2019)and (iii) Arbitration Act 2024, the last of which he was on the Law and Justice Commission committee led by senior Supreme Court puisne judge, Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, for legislative reforms to overhaul Pakistan's outdated Arbitration Act 1940.
Syed also has years of experience as a legal academic as a founding faculty member of the Ziauddin University Faculty of Law, Politics, and Governance in2019 where he spearheaded the effort to create 48-hour courses both in Mediation and Arbitration separately and have Ziauddin University LLB program be the first in the country to have them as mandatory courses for graduation in the 5-year bachelors law program. He has worked extensively with universities and led trainings at TMUC, SZABIST and other higher educational institutions to enable young people to be exposed to ADR, particularly young lawyers so they can be constructive supporters in the promotion of ADR.
He has unique expertise in Islamic Law and Human Rights which add a unique set of skills that enable him to engage in cultural/religious sensitive mediation that he has successfully demonstrated in family business and civil disputes. Though he practices commercial mediation, he has written extensively about the importance of cultural/religious values that play an important factor in successful mediation not just in a familial or commercial disputes but international political ones that can bring about peaceful resolution to conflicts.
Syed has been part of many initiatives to promote ADR, and in particular mediation, including engagement with the Sindh Judicial Academy training judges, Dar-ul Uloom training religious scholars, the Sindh High Court Bar Association training lawyers and various other professionals. Mr. Shah has also been recognized for his efforts in the South Asia region by supporting initiatives of SAARC Arbitration Council over the 8 country member states around both Arbitration and Mediation. He also is a core member of the team behind Pakistan International Disputes Week (PIDW), the signature annual in-country event around ADR.
Syed is impaneled in Pakistan with the Center for International Investment and Commercial Arbitration (CIICA) in Lahore led by FCIArb Mr. Rana Sajjadand with the International Centre for Appropriate Dispute Resolution AndPrevention (ICADRP) in Islamabad under FCIArb Nudrat Piracha as well. He alsois the country representative of the Istanbul-based Energy Dispute ArbitrationCenter (EDAC) where he helped start the now famous annual Istanbul ArbitrationWeek (ISTAW) in Turkey.
Currently, he is associated in a legal advisory capacity with the Islamic Chamber of Commerce & Development (ICCD) which is an OIC-affliated body representing 57-member state countries across the Islamic world through their federal chambers of commerce. Here he leads the efforts in promoting ADR with the private sector in the Muslim-business world and is a main liaison for ICCD's flagship project, the OIC-Arbitration Centre based in Istanbul, which is now a fully independent entity with it's own secretariat. He also serves as member of the Federation of Pakistan Chamber of Commerce Standing Committee on ADR until 2025.
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