Episode 11: Miriam Nazih Al-Rashid of Eversheds Sutherland - Rethinking International Arbitration for a World Worth Living In

Meriam Nazih Al-Rrashid is Global Co-Chair of International Arbitration and Co-head of the Latin American Arbitration practice at Eversheds Sutherland and is based in the New York City area. She is also an adjunct professor of law at Fordham University Law School, a peer review board member of the American Review of International Arbitration, a committee member at the Cyrus R Vance Center for International Justice, and the holder of numerous other arbitrator roles. Her areas of focus on international dispute resolution, international trade and commercial arbitration, as well as human rights and international law.  She is also the President and Co-Founder of Allusionist Pictures, a film production company. 

Our wide-ranging discussion starts with Meriam's upbringing in Utah where as child of a Iraqi father and Egyptian mother she was a member of only one of five Arab families in the neighborhood. She talks about her family's history and how they came to be in the US, and how that made an impression on her personality, her ambition, her adaptability and her resilience.  When she returned to Iraq as a child for some time, her experience there as a newcomer and the backdrop of war time all were formative.  As a child she had a love for the arts and pursued dance to a professional level.  We discuss what this taught her about choreography, teamwork, performance and creative expression.

Moving then to her career in law, Meriam's path was far from a standard one.  She pursued a law degree and an initial professional role that didn't always square with the path taken of her peers, and when she finally discovered her passion for international law, she again did not adopt a typical trajectory.  Her path was a more indirect one, and we talk about what excites her most in the area of international arbitration and the blending of concepts of human rights law, environmental law and international arbitration.

Finally we turn to another one of Meriam's passions - film and the production company that she founded and her vision for both film and the art of creating. 

This series is brought to you with the kind support of Eversheds Sutherland.  As a global top 10 law firm, Eversheds Sutherland provides legal services to a global client base. With more than 3,000 lawyers, Eversheds Sutherland operates in over 70 offices in more than 30 countries across Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the United States.

The firm recognises that having diverse talent across its business brings many benefits. It is committed to accessing a wide range of views, perspectives and thinking in all of its teams and in this way is building a culture of inclusion, where each person feels able to be their true self at work and reach their full potential.
 
Diversity and Inclusion is fundamental to the firm’s purpose of “helping our clients, our people and our communities to thrive”, and ‘Inclusive’ is one of its five values.