The Impact of Virtual Hearings on International Arbitration.

The COVID-19 pandemic did not invent remote participation in international arbitration, but it forced the arbitration community to test virtual hearings at a scale and under circumstances that few institutions, tribunals or practitioners had previously contemplated. When international travel stopped, offices closed and governments imposed restrictions on physical gatherings, arbitral tribunals faced a practical choice between postponing proceedings indefinitely and attempting to conduct complex hearings through videoconferencing technology. What initially appeared to be an emergency response subsequently produced a much more consequential development because international arbitration discovered that the physical hearing room was not indispensable to every dispute, and many of the procedural assumptions surrounding where and how an arbitration hearing must take place could be reconsidered.

Several years later, the important question is no longer whether an international arbitration hearing can be conducted virtually because leading arbitral institutions and international evidentiary standards have already answered that question. The 2026 ICC Arbitration Rules expressly authorize tribunals, after consulting the parties and considering the circumstances of the case, to determine that a hearing will take place in person, in hybrid form, by videoconference, by teleconference or through another form of electronic communication. The LCIA Rules similarly provide that hearings may take place physically, virtually or through a combination of both formats, while the 2020 IBA Rules on the Taking of Evidence expressly introduced remote hearings into their evidentiary framework. Virtual participation has therefore moved from emergency improvisation into the procedural architecture of mainstream international arbitration. (iccwbo.org)

The more difficult question in 2026 is whether this transformation has actually made international arbitration better because virtual hearings unquestionably offer advantages in cost, scheduling, accessibility and environmental impact, particularly in disputes involving participants located across several continents, while those efficiencies do not eliminate serious questions concerning witness examination, technological inequality, confidentiality, cybersecurity, procedural fairness and the effectiveness of advocacy through a screen. The pandemic proved that arbitration does not always require everyone to occupy the same room, but the years since have demonstrated that this conclusion does not mean every arbitration should abandon the hearing room.

The lasting impact of virtual hearings is therefore more complicated than the suggestion that arbitration has simply “gone digital,” because they have changed the meaning of procedural flexibility itself by giving tribunals and parties another viable method of conducting proceedings. That development increasingly requires arbitration users to explain why a particular hearing format is appropriate for a particular dispute instead of assuming that physical attendance is inherently superior or that virtual participation is automatically more efficient.

The Pandemic Changed a Procedural Assumption, Not Merely a Technology

Before 2020, international arbitration was already technologically sophisticated in many respects because counsel routinely exchanged submissions electronically, tribunals communicated by email, case-management conferences could take place by telephone or videoconference, and witnesses occasionally appeared remotely when travel was impractical. What remained deeply embedded in arbitration culture, however, was the expectation that a major evidentiary hearing would ordinarily bring arbitrators, counsel, witnesses, experts, interpreters and support teams into a physical hearing venue, particularly where the dispute involved substantial financial claims or extensive witness testimony.

COVID-19 disrupted that assumption almost overnight because international travel became impossible or unreliable, hearing venues became inaccessible, and cases involving parties on different continents could no longer proceed according to conventional arrangements. Postponement was technically possible, but indefinite postponement carried its own consequences because parties had already spent substantial amounts pursuing claims or defenses and were entitled to expect disputes to progress toward resolution rather than remain suspended indefinitely because physical attendance could not be organized.

Remote hearings therefore became a mechanism for preserving access to adjudication rather than simply a technological convenience. The IBA’s explanation of its 2020 revisions to the Rules on the Taking of Evidence makes this history explicit by observing that pandemic restrictions made in-person evidentiary hearings impossible or impractical and led tribunals and parties to adopt remote-hearing practices on a much wider scale, with the revised rules consequently introducing Article 8.2 to address remote evidentiary hearings expressly. (ibanet.org)

That development matters because international arbitration is largely built around party autonomy and procedural flexibility, unlike many domestic court systems where procedural rules can require formal physical appearances and highly structured courtroom processes. Once institutions and tribunals established that evidentiary hearings could be conducted remotely while preserving the parties’ ability to present their cases, the argument that physical hearings were procedurally indispensable became considerably more difficult to sustain, particularly where the relevant witnesses, experts and counsel could participate effectively through reliable technological systems.

The pandemic consequently produced something more durable than widespread familiarity with Zoom, Microsoft Teams or comparable videoconferencing platforms because it forced the arbitration community to separate the legal right to a fair hearing from the physical act of sitting together in a hearing room. Those two concepts had often been treated as if they were practically inseparable, but modern arbitration practice increasingly demonstrates that procedural fairness depends more heavily upon whether each party can meaningfully present its case than upon whether every participant occupies the same geographical location.

The ICC’s Rules Show How Far the Change Has Progressed

The evolution of the ICC Rules provides particularly strong evidence that virtual hearings have moved beyond temporary pandemic practice because the ICC’s 2026 Arbitration Rules, which entered into force on June 1, 2026, expressly provide in Article 27 that a tribunal may determine, after consulting the parties and considering the relevant facts and circumstances, that a hearing will be conducted in person, in hybrid form, by videoconference, by teleconference or through another form of electronic communication. The same rules also permit case-management conferences to take place through electronic means and expressly recognize electronic participation in other aspects of the proceedings. (iccwbo.org)

This wording is important because it does not establish virtual hearings as an inferior substitute available only when physical attendance becomes impossible, but instead places physical, hybrid and virtual formats within the tribunal’s range of procedural choices. The appropriate method is therefore determined by the circumstances of the dispute, the needs of the parties, the evidentiary issues involved and the tribunal’s obligation to conduct the proceedings fairly and efficiently.

The LCIA reached a similar position through its 2020 Rules because Article 19.2 gives the tribunal broad authority over the form of the hearing and expressly states that a hearing may take place in person, virtually by conference call or videoconference, through other communications technology, or in a combined format involving participants in different locations. (lcia.org)

These provisions significantly weaken one of the early objections to virtual arbitration, namely that conducting a hearing remotely was procedurally unusual or lacked institutional legitimacy. Whatever uncertainty may have existed during the first months of the pandemic, virtual hearings are now expressly contemplated by leading arbitration frameworks, although tribunals must still ensure that the format selected does not compromise the parties’ procedural rights.

The Greatest Advantage May Be Geographic Rather Than Technological

International arbitration has always faced a geographic problem that domestic litigation generally does not encounter to the same degree because a single arbitration can involve a claimant incorporated in one country, a respondent located in another, three arbitrators living in three additional jurisdictions, witnesses scattered across several continents, experts working elsewhere and counsel operating from offices in London, Paris, Singapore, Dubai, New York or other arbitration centers. A conventional hearing requires bringing many of those individuals to one location simultaneously, sometimes for several days or weeks, and the logistical burden can become substantial even before the tribunal begins hearing evidence.

The financial implications are obvious because international airfare, hotels, local transportation, hearing rooms, catering, interpretation infrastructure and the movement of large legal teams can generate substantial costs before the tribunal hears a single witness. For a major dispute involving hundreds of millions or billions of dollars, those expenses may represent a relatively small proportion of the amount at stake, but international arbitration is not confined to billion-dollar disputes, and for smaller companies and lower-value claims, hearing logistics can materially affect whether arbitration remains economically rational.

Virtual hearings can remove much of that geographic expense because counsel can participate from their offices, witnesses can give evidence from their home jurisdictions, experts can appear without international travel and arbitrators can hear the dispute without spending days traveling to and from the hearing venue. The accessibility benefit extends beyond money because senior executives and specialist witnesses who might struggle to spend a week or two abroad can participate for the portions of the hearing in which they are actually required, while technical experts may appear for several hours rather than losing several days to international travel.

This flexibility can make international arbitration genuinely more international because participation becomes less dependent upon the ability to travel to a major arbitration center, although accessibility should not be confused with equality. A virtual hearing may eliminate geographic distance while introducing technological inequality, particularly where one party has access to sophisticated facilities, high-speed redundant internet connections and professional technical support while another party or witness participates from a jurisdiction with unreliable connectivity or limited access to suitable equipment.

The Cost Argument Is Strong, but It Is Frequently Oversimplified

The proposition that virtual hearings reduce costs is intuitively persuasive, but the extent of the savings depends heavily upon the dispute because travel and accommodation costs can certainly fall dramatically, while physical hearing venues and associated logistical expenses may disappear altogether. Electronic bundles can also reduce printing, shipping and document-handling costs, particularly in proceedings involving thousands of pages of evidence that would otherwise be physically transported to the hearing venue.

A professionally conducted virtual hearing, however, is not necessarily inexpensive because complex proceedings may require specialized videoconferencing infrastructure, electronic hearing bundles, real-time transcription, interpretation, cybersecurity support, dedicated technicians, virtual breakout rooms, backup communication systems and equipment supplied to important witnesses. The more realistic argument is therefore not that virtual hearings make arbitration inexpensive, but that they can eliminate categories of expenditure that do not necessarily contribute directly to determining the merits of the dispute.

That distinction is important because the principal cost of international arbitration often remains professional time, and lawyers must still prepare submissions, review evidence, prepare witnesses, conduct legal research and appear at the hearing, while experts must still prepare reports and arbitrators must still study the case, hear arguments and deliberate. Moving those activities online does not eliminate their cost, which means virtual hearings are most likely to produce significant savings where travel and physical logistics constitute a substantial component of the hearing budget.

Efficiency Is Not Simply About Making Hearings Faster

Virtual hearings can improve scheduling because participants no longer need to coordinate international travel, but efficiency should not be measured solely by whether a hearing occupies fewer calendar days because a badly designed virtual hearing can become less efficient than a physical one if participants experience repeated connectivity problems, electronic bundles are poorly organized, witnesses cannot access documents quickly or counsel spend substantial time resolving technical problems.

The ICC’s work on technology in arbitration reflects this more sophisticated understanding of efficiency because its Commission on Arbitration and ADR drew upon survey responses from more than 500 members of the international arbitration community and provided practical resources including virtual-hearing checklists and a model procedural order. Importantly, the report did not recommend a universal preference for virtual proceedings, and most respondents considered that there should be no automatic presumption favoring physical, hybrid or virtual hearings, with the appropriate format instead depending upon the circumstances of the case. (iccwbo.org)

This remains one of the strongest conclusions to emerge from post-pandemic practice because technological capability answers whether something can be done remotely, while procedural judgment determines whether remote participation is suitable for the particular dispute.

Witness Examination Remains One of the Hardest Questions

One of the most persistent objections to virtual evidentiary hearings concerns witnesses because cross-examination is not simply the mechanical process of asking questions and recording answers. Experienced advocates and arbitrators pay attention to hesitation, interaction with documents, responses to unexpected questions and the overall consistency of testimony, while the structure of a physical hearing allows participants to observe aspects of witness behavior that may not be visible through a computer screen.

Videoconferencing changes that environment because the tribunal may see only a witness’s face and upper body, the camera may provide a narrower perspective than physical observation, slight transmission delays can disrupt conversational rhythm, and poor image or audio quality can make communication more difficult. The more significant concern, however, is not simply the reduced ability to observe body language but the possibility that the tribunal may not know what is occurring outside the camera’s field of view.

A witness participating remotely could potentially have notes, documents, messaging applications or another individual available outside the tribunal’s view, while someone could attempt to communicate with the witness electronically as evidence is being given. The IBA Rules anticipated this issue by providing that, when a remote evidentiary hearing is ordered, the tribunal should consult with the parties concerning a remote-hearing protocol addressing matters such as the technology to be used, advance testing, different time zones, the presentation of documents and measures designed to ensure that witnesses are not improperly influenced or distracted while giving evidence. (prod-bo.ibanet.org)

This demonstrates why remote witness evidence should not simply mean opening a videoconference link and proceeding as though nothing has changed. The hearing environment itself becomes part of evidentiary integrity, and tribunals may require witnesses to show the room through a camera, confirm that no unauthorized person is present, close messaging applications, use a second camera providing a wider view or attend a supervised facility where the significance of the testimony justifies stronger safeguards.

Physical Observation of Witnesses Should Not Be Romanticized

Arguments favoring physical hearings sometimes assume that arbitrators possess an unusually reliable ability to determine truthfulness by observing a witness in person, but that assumption should be treated cautiously because human beings can be poor judges of credibility based upon demeanor alone. Cultural differences can make body-language interpretation particularly unreliable in international disputes, while a witness giving evidence in a second or third language may pause frequently, avoid eye contact or appear uncomfortable for reasons having nothing to do with dishonesty.

Virtual testimony certainly removes some physical information, but the importance of that loss should not be exaggerated because documentary consistency, contemporaneous records, internal logic, corroborating evidence and the substance of cross-examination may be considerably more reliable indicators of credibility than whether a witness appeared nervous while answering a difficult question. The strongest criticism of virtual witness evidence is therefore not merely that arbitrators cannot observe body language as easily, but that remote testimony changes the evidentiary environment and introduces additional risks of distraction, technological interference and undisclosed assistance that tribunals must actively manage.

Time Zones Can Turn Accessibility Into Procedural Inequality

Virtual hearings eliminate travel but they do not eliminate geography, and a tribunal composed of arbitrators in Europe, counsel in North America, a party in Asia and witnesses in Australia may discover that there is no hearing schedule that is equally reasonable for everyone. Requiring one party’s counsel or witnesses to participate repeatedly during the middle of the night can affect concentration, advocacy and procedural equality, particularly during a lengthy evidentiary hearing.

The IBA Rules specifically identify participant time zones as an issue that should be considered when designing remote-hearing protocols, which reflects the broader principle that a technologically accessible hearing is not necessarily a procedurally equal one. (prod-bo.ibanet.org)

The solution may involve shorter hearing days, rotating schedules so that the inconvenience does not consistently fall upon one side, dividing witness evidence according to geography or adopting a hybrid structure, although these arrangements may extend the calendar duration of a hearing even while making each individual day more manageable. Virtual arbitration is therefore efficient only when efficiency is evaluated from the perspective of all participants rather than simply the tribunal or the party located in the most convenient time zone.

Confidentiality Becomes a Cybersecurity Question

International commercial arbitration is often valued for the degree of privacy it can provide, although confidentiality is not identical across every arbitration law, institutional rule or arbitration agreement. Virtual proceedings create a different confidentiality environment because sensitive evidence and legal argument travel through digital systems rather than remaining primarily inside a controlled hearing room, which means unauthorized recording, compromised credentials, insecure networks, phishing attacks, improperly configured cloud storage and unauthorized participants can all create significant risks.

A dispute involving trade secrets, intellectual property, government information, commercially sensitive pricing or confidential technology may make those concerns particularly serious. The ICC’s technology report consequently treats data security and confidentiality as core issues when selecting and using technological tools in arbitration rather than peripheral information-technology concerns. (iccwbo.org)

Cybersecurity in a virtual arbitration cannot simply be delegated to an organization’s IT department because technological decisions can affect the legal integrity of the proceeding. Tribunals and counsel must consider who can access the hearing, how participants authenticate themselves, whether recordings are permitted, how electronic exhibits are distributed, where information is stored and what happens if the principal platform fails, particularly where the dispute involves commercially or politically sensitive material.

Technical Failure Is Now a Due Process Issue

An unstable internet connection may appear to be a logistical inconvenience until it prevents counsel from hearing testimony or stops a witness from understanding cross-examination, at which point technology becomes a procedural fairness problem because international arbitration is built upon the requirement that parties receive a meaningful opportunity to present their cases.

If one party repeatedly loses connectivity during important testimony, the tribunal cannot simply continue because the hearing is scheduled to end that afternoon, since procedural efficiency cannot override fairness. The IBA’s remote-hearing framework consequently emphasizes advance testing and procedures designed to reduce unintended interruptions, while sophisticated virtual hearings increasingly involve backup connections, alternative communication channels, telephone numbers for emergency participation, technical rehearsals and procedures specifying what will happen if a participant disconnects. (prod-bo.ibanet.org)

The appropriate approach is therefore not to assume that technology will operate perfectly, but to design the hearing around the possibility that technological failure may occur at a legally significant moment and to establish procedures capable of preserving fairness when it does.

Do Virtual Hearings Threaten the Enforceability of Arbitral Awards?

During the early pandemic period, one of the most serious legal concerns was whether a party opposing a virtual hearing could later argue that the procedure violated due process and seek to have the resulting award set aside or denied enforcement. That concern deserves careful treatment, but it should no longer be presented as though an award becomes legally questionable merely because the hearing occurred by videoconference, particularly when major institutional rules now expressly contemplate virtual proceedings.

The modern institutional framework has moved decisively toward recognizing remote proceedings because the ICC Rules expressly authorize them, the LCIA Rules expressly authorize them and the IBA Rules on evidence expressly provide a framework for remote evidentiary hearings. The relevant legal question is therefore not simply whether the hearing was virtual, but whether the procedure was fair and whether each party had an adequate opportunity to participate and present its case. (iccwbo.org)

The 1958 New York Convention permits recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards across a vast network of Contracting States while also allowing enforcement to be refused on specified grounds, including circumstances in which a party was not given proper notice or was otherwise unable to present its case. A virtual hearing conducted with adequate notice, equal technological access, meaningful opportunity for examination and cross-examination, reliable interpretation and appropriate procedures is therefore fundamentally different from one in which technical arrangements materially prevent one side from participating.

Virtual Hearings Have Changed Advocacy

One of the less discussed consequences of virtual arbitration is that advocacy itself changes when the tribunal is watching through a screen because counsel can no longer rely upon the same physical dynamics that exist inside a hearing room. In an in-person proceeding, counsel can observe when an arbitrator appears confused, interested in a document, discussing something with another tribunal member or becoming impatient with an argument, whereas virtual platforms can make those reactions more difficult to interpret, particularly when participants appear in small windows or arbitrators temporarily turn cameras off.

The presentation of evidence also becomes more screen-dependent because a complicated construction drawing, financial model or technical diagram that could be placed physically before the tribunal must be displayed electronically in a manner allowing everyone to follow the same material simultaneously. This can improve advocacy when managed properly because electronic exhibits can be displayed instantly, relevant passages can be enlarged and highlighted, and tribunals can move rapidly between documents without waiting for every participant to locate the same page within extensive paper bundles.

Poorly handled digital advocacy can produce the opposite effect because constant screen switching, unreadable exhibits, delayed document retrieval and competing windows can make a complex case more difficult to understand. Virtual hearings therefore reward a different form of preparation in which counsel must think not only about the substance of the argument but also about what the tribunal will physically see on its screen while that argument is being presented.

The Environmental Consequences Should Not Be Ignored

International arbitration has historically required substantial international travel because a multiweek hearing can involve dozens of participants flying across continents, sometimes followed by additional hearings involving the same case. Virtual participation can dramatically reduce that travel footprint, and although environmental considerations cannot determine hearing format by themselves because procedural fairness must remain paramount, they have increasingly become part of the broader efficiency calculation.

The IBA commentary concerning remote hearings expressly identifies environmental considerations alongside time and cost when discussing factors relevant to remote proceedings, reflecting the growing recognition that international arbitration should consider whether physical travel actually contributes sufficient procedural value to justify its financial and environmental consequences. (ibanet.org)

This issue is likely to become more important as corporations, law firms and arbitral institutions strengthen sustainability commitments and scrutinize the environmental consequences of professional travel, particularly for short procedural conferences that could be conducted effectively through videoconference without requiring participants to cross international borders.

Hybrid Hearings May Be the Most Important Long-Term Development

The debate is sometimes presented as a choice between physical and virtual hearings, but the most durable consequence of the pandemic may instead be the normalization of hybrid arbitration because hybrid formats allow tribunals to use physical presence selectively rather than treating travel as an all-or-nothing decision. A tribunal and principal counsel might gather physically while certain witnesses participate remotely, fact witnesses might appear in person while technical experts give evidence by videoconference, or opening statements and major cross-examinations might occur physically while procedural conferences and less contentious evidence are handled remotely.

The 2026 ICC Rules expressly recognize hybrid proceedings alongside physical and virtual formats, while the LCIA Rules similarly contemplate combined forms of participation. (iccwbo.org)

Hybrid hearings nevertheless create their own fairness problems because a witness physically present with one legal team may experience the proceeding differently from a witness appearing on a screen, while participants inside the hearing room may communicate more naturally with the tribunal than remote participants. A poorly designed hybrid hearing can therefore create two classes of participation, which means hybrid proceedings require just as much procedural planning as fully virtual ones and sometimes even more.

The Data Suggests Arbitration Users Have Moved Beyond the Pandemic Debate

The broader arbitration community has also moved considerably since the emergency conditions of 2020 because the 2025 International Arbitration Survey conducted by Queen Mary University of London’s School of International Arbitration in partnership with White & Case received 2,402 questionnaire responses and conducted 117 interviews, making it the largest respondent pool in the history of that long-running survey series. The results showed that 87 percent of respondents continued to prefer international arbitration, either alone or combined with alternative dispute resolution, for resolving cross-border disputes. (qmul.ac.uk)

The significance of the survey for virtual hearings lies partly in how much the profession’s conversation has changed because the arbitration community is no longer principally asking whether technology belongs in international arbitration. Attention has moved toward how technology, artificial intelligence, digital case management and other innovations should be used responsibly and efficiently, which reflects how thoroughly digital procedure has moved into the ordinary infrastructure of arbitration rather than remaining an emergency alternative associated exclusively with the pandemic. (whitecase.com)

The ICC’s own technology study reached a similarly important conclusion because it rejected any universal presumption favoring physical, virtual or hybrid hearings and instead emphasized that the circumstances of each dispute should determine the appropriate format. This principle may ultimately be the pandemic’s most lasting procedural legacy because it places proportionality and case-specific judgment above assumptions about the superiority of any single hearing model. (iccwbo.org)

Virtual Hearings Can Broaden the Pool of Arbitrators and Experts

The removal of routine travel can also affect who is available to participate in international arbitration because arbitrators with substantial professional or personal commitments may be able to accept cases requiring remote procedural meetings more easily than cases demanding repeated international travel. Experts can participate from different markets without building substantial travel costs into their fees, while parties may be less constrained by geography when selecting specialist counsel or expert witnesses.

This development can potentially support greater diversity in arbitration because physical proximity to traditional arbitration centers becomes somewhat less important, although the benefit should not be overstated because professional networks, reputation, institutional appointment practices and other structural factors continue to influence who receives arbitration appointments. Nevertheless, reducing the assumption that international arbitration requires frequent intercontinental travel removes at least one practical barrier to participation and potentially widens the pool of individuals who can realistically accept international appointments.

Not Every Case Should Be Virtual

The strongest argument in favor of virtual hearings becomes weaker when it is converted into an argument that physical hearings are obsolete because some disputes genuinely justify bringing participants together. Cases turning heavily upon contested witness testimony may benefit from physical examination, extremely complex multiparty proceedings can be easier to manage when teams occupy a common hearing environment, and cases involving extensive physical evidence or complicated simultaneous interpretation may present additional challenges remotely.

There is also value in human interaction that cannot be measured entirely through hearing costs because counsel can confer quickly, tribunals can communicate naturally, parties may develop greater confidence in the process and settlement discussions sometimes emerge from interactions surrounding the formal hearing rather than from the hearing itself. International arbitration should therefore resist replacing one procedural assumption with another, because it would be just as misguided in 2026 to assume that hearings should be virtual unless someone proves physical attendance necessary as it was before 2020 to assume that important hearings should be physical unless remote participation could be justified.

The Right Question Is No Longer Whether a Hearing Should Be Virtual or Physical

For each case, the tribunal and parties should examine what they are actually trying to accomplish during the hearing and determine which format best serves those objectives. If the proceeding consists primarily of legal submissions on an issue that can be argued effectively within several hours, requiring international travel may add little procedural value, whereas a dispute involving numerous witnesses whose credibility is intensely contested may justify physical attendance despite the additional expense.

The amount in dispute, participant locations, technological infrastructure, time zones, disability and accessibility considerations, confidentiality requirements, cybersecurity risk, interpretation needs and the parties’ preferences should all form part of the decision. This is precisely why the ICC’s conclusion that there should be no universal presumption favoring one hearing format is so important, because international arbitration’s principal procedural advantage has always been flexibility, and virtual hearings should expand that flexibility rather than become another rigid procedural orthodoxy. (iccwbo.org)

The Pandemic’s Real Legacy Is Procedural Choice

It is tempting to describe the impact of virtual hearings on international arbitration as a technological revolution, but the deeper transformation is institutional because the pandemic forced arbitral institutions, tribunals, lawyers and parties to question assumptions about what a hearing actually requires, and many of those assumptions did not survive the experiment.

A tribunal no longer needs to assume that three arbitrators, multiple legal teams, witnesses and experts must travel to the same city simply because the dispute is important, while the existence of reliable videoconferencing technology does not mean that physical interaction has ceased to possess procedural value. The major institutional frameworks now reflect that reality because the ICC expressly recognizes physical, hybrid and electronically conducted hearings in its 2026 Rules, the LCIA expressly recognizes physical, virtual and combined hearings, and the IBA Rules on the Taking of Evidence provide a structured framework for remote evidentiary hearings addressing technology, testing, time zones, document presentation and witness integrity. (iccwbo.org)

These developments demonstrate that virtual hearings are no longer merely a pandemic workaround waiting to disappear when normality returns because they have become part of normal arbitration practice, while the central procedural question has shifted from whether virtual hearings are permissible to whether they are appropriate for a particular dispute.

Virtual Hearings Did Not Replace International Arbitration’s Hearing Room; They Ended Its Monopoly

The most important impact of virtual hearings on international arbitration is not that they made videoconferencing acceptable or reduced the number of airline tickets purchased by international law firms, but that they demonstrated that physical presence is a procedural choice rather than an automatic prerequisite for sophisticated international adjudication. Virtual hearings have made it possible to conduct cross-border disputes with substantially less travel, expanded access to geographically dispersed witnesses and experts, made scheduling more flexible and encouraged greater use of electronic evidence and digital case management, while simultaneously exposing new vulnerabilities involving cybersecurity, connectivity, witness integrity, technological inequality, screen-based advocacy and the difficulty of managing proceedings across multiple time zones.

Those competing consequences explain why the future of arbitration is unlikely to be entirely virtual, and the evidence instead points toward a more flexible system in which tribunals select among physical, virtual and hybrid formats according to the demands of the particular dispute. The fact that the ICC’s 2026 Rules expressly place these alternatives within the tribunal’s procedural toolkit is especially significant because it demonstrates how thoroughly a practice that became indispensable during an emergency has been absorbed into mainstream arbitration procedure. (iccwbo.org)

During the pandemic, practitioners were compelled to ask whether a tribunal could conduct an important arbitration without every participant being physically present, whereas years of actual practice and institutional reform have now made the answer substantially clearer. The more sophisticated question is whether a particular hearing should be virtual, physical or hybrid, and that decision cannot properly be determined by technological enthusiasm, cost calculations or tradition alone because it requires the tribunal and parties to consider fairness, proportionality, evidentiary requirements, technological capability, accessibility and the specific needs of the dispute.

International arbitration has historically distinguished itself from national litigation through procedural adaptability, and virtual hearings have expanded that advantage considerably by removing the assumption that a serious international dispute necessarily requires every participant to travel thousands of miles before the case can be heard. The physical hearing room remains important and will continue to be the most appropriate environment for some disputes, but its position has changed permanently because international arbitration now possesses credible alternatives capable of delivering sophisticated adjudication without requiring every person involved to occupy the same physical space.

References and Further Reading

The International Chamber of Commerce’s 2026 Arbitration Rules, effective June 1, 2026, provide particularly important current authority because Article 27 expressly permits hearings to be conducted in person, in hybrid form, by videoconference, teleconference or other electronic communication after consultation with the parties and consideration of the relevant circumstances. (iccwbo.org)

ICC — 2026 Arbitration Rules

The ICC Commission on Arbitration and ADR Report on Leveraging Technology for Fair, Effective and Efficient International Arbitration Proceedings provides extensive analysis of technology use, virtual and hybrid hearings, case management, cybersecurity and procedural planning, drawing on survey responses from more than 500 members of the arbitration community and providing practical tools including virtual-hearing checklists and model procedural language. (iccwbo.org)

ICC — Leveraging Technology in International Arbitration

The LCIA Arbitration Rules 2020, particularly Article 19.2, expressly recognize that hearings may take place physically, virtually through videoconference or other communications technology, or through a combined format involving participants in multiple locations. (lcia.org)

LCIA — Arbitration Rules 2020

The IBA Rules on the Taking of Evidence in International Arbitration 2020 are particularly important for evidentiary hearings because Article 8.2 expressly addresses remote hearings and identifies issues including technology selection, advance testing, time zones, presentation of documents and safeguards against improper influence on witnesses. (prod-bo.ibanet.org)

International Bar Association — Arbitration Resources

The 2025 International Arbitration Survey, conducted by Queen Mary University of London’s School of International Arbitration in partnership with White & Case, provides a current empirical picture of international arbitration practice based on 2,402 questionnaire responses and 117 interviews. (qmul.ac.uk)

Queen Mary University of London — 2025 International Arbitration Survey

Note: This article is based on institutional rules, professional standards and empirical arbitration research available through August 2026 and is intended for legal information and analysis rather than legal advice.