Stephen L Drymer is Head of International Arbitration at Woods LLP. A litigator and advocate by background and experience, he now practices almost exclusively in the area of domestic and international arbitration and dispute resolution.
Stephen acts as counsel, and serves as arbitrator and mediator, in domestic and international commercial and investment treaty disputes, and advises parties on a broad range of issues associated with the design, negotiation, drafting and implementation of dispute resolution agreements and strategies.
A graduate of Yale University and of the Faculty of Law of McGill University, educated and trained in both the common law and the civil law, fluent in French and English and with a working knowledge of Spanish, Stephen has pleaded cases and served as mediator, party-appointed arbitrator and tribunal president in matters involving the laws of many jurisdictions. He has acted in commercial and investment cases in the manufacturing, infrastructure, construction, petrochemical, oil & gas (including exploration, production, transportation, pricing), mining, energy, environmental, financial services, outsourcing, hospitality, transportation, aviation, IT, telecommunication, aerospace and crop science industries, among others. He is currently serving as co-arbitrator or as tribunal president in several ICSID cases as well as in other (non-public) investor-State disputes.
Stephen also advises and represents clients, both government and non-governmental, in matters of public international law and dispute resolution, including maritime delimitation and transboundary resource management. He was a negotiator for Canada in the renewal of the Canada-U.S. Pacific Salmon Treaty and counsel to Canada in the mediation of disputes arising under that Treaty. He was counsel for the Government of Nova Scotia before an international tribunal constituted to determine the offshore boundary between the province of Nova Scotia and the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. He was an adviser to the Secretary General of the United Nations and mediator in a territorial and resource dispute between Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. And he was a neutral evaluator in an international dispute involving private and public parties in the Middle East.
Stephen is as well very active in the resolution of sport-related disputes, in cases before the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada and the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne.
In addition to numerous professional associations in which he is active, Stephen is a member of the CAS list of arbitrators, the ICDR International Panel of Arbitrators and Mediators, the CIETAC International Panel of Arbitrators and the Panel of Arbitrators and Mediators of the SDRCC. He is also a Member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and Chair of the Arbitration Committee of ICC Canada, the Canadian National Committee of the ICC International Court of Arbitration.
Stephen is recognised as one of Canada's and the world's leading international lawyers and dispute resolution professionals.
