Reflections from SCC Arbitration Week 2025
THE AUTHOR:
Nelson Voß, LL.M. Candidate at Stockholm University
The flagship event of SCC Arbitration Week 2025 convened under the overarching theme “Negotiations in Complex Situations,” with a specific focus on “Conducting international business despite challenging times.” Designed to bridge the business, political, and geopolitical spheres with the legal community, the event deliberately featured a speaker from outside the legal profession. Caroline Falconer, Secretary General of the SCC Arbitration Institute (“SCC”), hosted and moderated the session, welcoming a broad cross-section of the international community of lawyers. From the outset, she underscored the event’s purpose: the SCC as a neutral and trusted forum for dispute resolution must understand the everyday realities of its users. That premise shaped the cross-disciplinary conversations that followed.
To that end, it is essential to anticipate where the world is heading and shape business strategies accordingly. With these introductory remarks, Joakim Paasikivi took the stage to present his perspective on geopolitics and today’s major shifts. He did not sugarcoat his assessment. Paasikivi brings a distinguished military background, including service in the Swedish Armed Forces and teaching roles at the Swedish Defence University in Stockholm and the Baltic Defence College in Estonia. His experience also includes assignments in Finland and senior posts in intelligence and security. In 2024, he joined the Swedish law firm Mannheimer Swartling as Senior Geopolitical Adviser, where he is recognised for his foresight and continues to advise on geopolitics, global security, and business-related security matters. All the views and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the SCC or his affiliated organisations. All his analyses were provided based on publicly available information.
A Multipolar World
After a light-hearted apology for his heightened media presence since 2022 and the war in Ukraine, Paasikivi turned to the central question: how can we conduct business today and plan for the future? He asked what assumptions still hold, noting that we no longer live in the same world we recognised only a few years ago. “The world is in disorder,” he stated. In his view, the UN security order, built on two basic ideas: that war is unacceptable and that borders should not change, no longer prevails. A system led by the United States (“US”) has become a multipolar order. Leaders in Moscow and Beijing, he observed, argue for a broader distribution of power, yet he considers this multipolar structure less secure than a unipolar one. He saw Russia as the catalyst for this shift and argued that US foreign policy, with major implications for Europe, is effectively absent, likening it to a return to the Monroe Doctrine of two centuries ago. These shifts flow directly into the European Union’s (“EU”) trade choices, regulatory posture, and security assumptions.
He then turned to the EU, arguing that it could constitute a significant pillar of power yet struggles to achieve sufficient internal cohesion. Member states do take decisions together, he observed, but still tend to move in different directions, with significant consequences for trade. With respect to commerce between Europe and the US, he highlighted the uncertainty surrounding it, especially in connection with US tariffs, noting that such trade barriers would also shape Europe’s dealings with other partners worldwide. Paasikivi emphasised that Europe must cultivate a diversified set of trading relationships, including with China, India, and other countries. He noted that the Chinese are widely regarded as leaders in green technologies and the automotive industry. At the same time, Europe should avoid sliding into new dependencies, as occurred previously with Russian gas.
“The biggest threat would be not to trust ourselves.”
When Falconer asked about the major threats to Sweden in this geopolitical context, Paasikivi’s answer was direct. The greatest risk, he argued, is “failing to trust ourselves“, particularly within the institutions “we belong to“, namely the EU and NATO. Referencing the prevailing military situation and events in Georgia and, twice, in Ukraine, he maintained that those who do not share Sweden’s world view are provoked by weakness. Sweden must therefore retain confidence in itself, in its alliances, and in the continuous cooperation within these alliances. If that confidence holds, these institutions will remain effective and resilient. The objective, he added, invoking the strategist Sun Tzu, should be to win without fighting. Sweden and the EU must not waiver. Preparedness will not make the problems smaller, but it will place us in a safer position.
Fielding Falconer’s question on whether cooperation within NATO works, he replied in the affirmative, subject to a caveat: the United States must maintain a military presence in Europe and regular NATO exercises, such as those in the Baltic Sea, must continue. He added that NATO could consider alternatives, including relying on France’s nuclear capabilities. Even so, he stressed that as long as the US remains engaged — Paasikivi sees a US geographical realignment of forces, but not a complete withdrawal — NATO cooperation will function in its current setup.
How to Keep Businesses Alive?
“Plans are nothing; planning is everything”.
In invoking Eisenhower, Paasikivi’s message was clear: do not succumb to nostalgia. We are in a period of change and must look forward. It is necessary to engage with new potential partners; where one door closes, another opens. He acknowledged that the specific choices are not his to make but urged participants to widen their horizons.
A near-term test of that cohesion is the EU’s sanctions regime, where strategic aims collide with commercial exposure. He characterised President Trump as a “dealmaker” whose approach to any peace negotiations he claims to pursue is primarily about conducting business and striking deals.
Trade Under Geopolitical Strain
Addressing Asia and the Pacific region, Paasikivi considers China to be a viable trading partner despite demographic and certain economic headwinds. Referencing discussions around the 2025 Shanghai Cooperation Organization (“SCO”) Summit, he said Beijing’s ambition is to create a “new world order.” He observed that India has moved closer to China, a shift he linked to being “pushed away” by US policy under the Trump administration. Paasikivi added that in his view, China has Russia “exactly where it wants it”: a problem primarily for Europeans, while Beijing expands its influence elsewhere.
As for Taiwan, Paasikivi left open the prospect of its short- and long-term future. Paasikivi suspects that Beijing’s preferred course would be to leverage pro-China sentiment within Taiwan to achieve integration. One way or another, he considered such an outcome at least a possibility within the next decade.
Asked about India, Paasikivi described it as a highly attractive trading partner and noted that the EU has long sought to conclude a trade deal. India, he said, offers significant possibilities or at least potential, but its strategic posture complicates matters: positioned between competing power blocs, it also seeks great-power status. From the EU’s perspective, engagement is necessary, as it is with China, and the US. The real question is the extent of that engagement and how it is balanced, which will set the pace.
Diagnosis and Directive: “Get a Grip”
Toward the end of the evening’s lively Q&A, an audience member asked whether we had been negligent given the recent world events. Paasikivi’s reply was unsparing: “We were idiots; that’s fairly obvious.” He argued that liberal democracies are no longer perceived as the ideal because, in his view, those within them have been poor advocates for their own model. Competitors have shown that material prosperity can be achieved under other systems. Although the full range of freedoms we take for granted exists only in liberal democracy, we have failed to communicate that distinction persuasively. After the Soviet Union’s collapse, he suggested, the absence of a competing worldview fostered complacency: liberal democracies relied on the moral high ground and turned their focus elsewhere. In the years since, they have not “delivered” convincingly. That dynamic, he concluded, has prompted self-doubt, left us weak advocates for our own values, and contributed to a more dangerous world.
He closed with Falconer’s inevitable question: what must all of us do tomorrow? His answer was blunt: “Get a grip.” The most important service one can render to one’s country, outside the military, is to go to work and drive progress where one can, and to have the courage to lead change. For lawyers in particular, that means asking what should be changed: Which laws, rules, and regulations? Where can we move things forward? We must work to make things better, not to preserve the status quo. That may be painful, he concluded, but it is what courage and leadership demand.
Keeping Business Moving
Returning to the event’s opening premise, namely that a neutral and trusted forum must understand the everyday realities of its users, the event affirmed that this is an inherent business requirement. The cross-disciplinary lens reinforced a simple point: when contracts meet contested terrain, arbitration turns disagreement into a process with a finish line. That is what allows counterparties to keep doing business tomorrow. Arbitration alone does not promise peace. However, it promises a method. In a world that will not align with our schedule, neutral and independent dispute resolution belongs in the operating model. For counsel and companies alike, that means earlier alignment between commercial objectives and dispute strategy, clearer risk allocation at the drafting table, and procedures calibrated for time, cost, and enforceability. Ultimately, trust is earned when institutions meet users where they are, translating complexity into a workable path forward so commerce can continue.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nelson Voß holds the German First State Examination in Law from the University of Leipzig. During his studies, he specialised in legal history, legal philosophy, and legal sociology. After gaining experience in public economic law at one of the world’s largest law firms, he began the LL.M. in International Commercial Arbitration Law (“ICAL”) at Stockholm University in September 2025. Following the LL.M., Nelson intends to qualify and practise in Germany, focusing on domestic and international dispute resolution.
*The views and opinions expressed by authors are theirs and do not necessarily reflect those of their organizations, employers, or Daily Jus, Jus Mundi, or Jus Connect.
