Dr Paul MacMahon

This course is available on the LLM (extended part-time), LLM (full-time), MSc in Law and Finance and University of Pennsylvania Law School LLM Visiting Students. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit. This course uses controlled access as part of the course selection process. For information on controlled access courses, including eligibility, application processes, deadlines, and departmental contact details, please refer to the Controlled Access Courses webpage.

How to apply: Priority will be given initially to LLM, MSc Regulation and MSc Law and Finance students on a first-come-first-served allocation.

Spaces permitting, requests from all other students will be processed on the same first-come-first-served allocation from 10am on Thursday 1 October 2026

By submitting an application, students are confirming that they meet any pre-requisites specified. Providing an additional written statement will not aid a student's chances of being accepted onto a course, and statements are not read.

Deadline for application: Not applicable

For queries contact: Law.llm@lse.ac.uk.

This course has a limited number of places and demand is typically high. This may mean that you’re not able to get a place on this course.

No formal prerequisites, but students should have prior grounding in international commercial arbitration through taking LL4C5, through prior studies, or via practice experience. 

Building on a foundational understanding of international commercial arbitration, this course offers students the opportunity to engage with some of the most challenging and contested questions in the field. It is highly relevant for those pursuing careers in arbitration practice: the theoretical problems it addresses have direct and significant implications for how disputes are conducted and resolved.

Topics are selected for their contemporary significance and may include: anti-suit and anti-arbitration injunctions; third-party funding; emergency arbitrators and interim measures; corruption; sanctions; artifical intelligence; the extension of arbitration agreements to non-signatories; confidentiality; insolvency.

20 hours of seminars in the Winter Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Winter Term.

One essay or problem question.

Gary Born, International Commercial Arbitration (3rd edn, Kluwer 2020); Nigel Blackaby and Constantine Partasides, Redfern & Hunter on International Commercial Arbitration (7th edn, OUP 2022)

Exam (100%), duration: 150 Minutes in the Spring exam period.