About SchiedsVZ

SchiedsVZ

SchiedsVZ, the Zeitschrift für Schiedsverfahren, is a German legal journal devoted to arbitration, published in Munich by the C.H. Beck Verlag in cooperation with the German Arbitration Institute (DIS). Launched in 2003 as the first independent German-language journal dedicated entirely to arbitration law and practice, it appears six times a year under the parallel English title German Arbitration Journal. Its readership comprises arbitrators, counsel, corporate lawyers, and academics working in dispute resolution, and its content spans scholarly articles, case law, published arbitral awards, and institutional news from the arbitration world.

Overview

SchiedsVZ occupies a specialized but increasingly important corner of legal publishing. As more national and international commercial disputes are resolved before arbitral tribunals rather than state courts, arbitration has grown into a major field of legal practice, and the journal was created to give that field a dedicated German-language forum. Each issue combines practice-oriented essays on current questions of arbitration law with coverage of alternative dispute resolution methods such as commercial mediation.

The journal's scope is centered on arbitration in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, but as the German Arbitration Journal it also follows arbitral practice in other jurisdictions. A substantial part of every issue is devoted to decisions: current rulings of Germany's Federal Court of Justice and the higher regional courts on arbitration matters, significant foreign court decisions, and notable arbitral awards rendered by leading institutions, published with commentary and preceded by German- and English-language summaries. This bilingual abstracting makes the journal's content accessible to the international arbitration community.

Regular sections structure the offering: essays by leading academics and practitioners, an overview of international arbitration including legislative developments and new arbitration rules, current case law and awards with commentary, portraits of arbitration institutions and their procedural rules, the DIS page with announcements from the German Arbitration Institute, ArbAut news from the Austrian arbitration association, and a news section covering legislative projects and institutional annual reports in brief.

History

SchiedsVZ was founded in 2003 through a partnership between the C.H. Beck Verlag of Munich, Germany's leading legal publisher, and the Deutsche Institution für Schiedsgerichtsbarkeit (DIS), the German Arbitration Institute. The journal's first volume appeared in 2003, and it has been published continuously since, reaching its twenty-fourth volume in 2026. It is issued in cooperation with the Helbing Lichtenhahn Verlag of Basel, reflecting the journal's deliberate orientation toward the German-speaking arbitration triangle of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

The founding responded to a structural shift in dispute resolution. By the early 2000s, international commercial arbitration had outgrown its status as a niche practice: German companies were routinely agreeing to arbitration clauses, German cities were competing as arbitral seats, and German lawyers needed a domestic journal that treated arbitration as a primary field rather than an occasional topic in general litigation periodicals. SchiedsVZ filled that gap as the first standalone German journal for arbitration practice, and its establishment coincided with the broader professionalization of arbitration in continental Europe.

Over more than two decades the journal has documented the field's evolution: reforms of arbitration statutes, the revision of institutional rules at the ICC, DIS, and other bodies, the growth of investment arbitration and its backlash, the rise of third-party funding, and the digitalization of arbitral proceedings. A subscription to the journal is included in DIS membership, which has given it a stable institutional readership from the outset.

Coverage and Content

The essay section carries practice-oriented articles on current issues of arbitration law and alternative dispute resolution, written by leading experts from academia and practice. Topics range from doctrinal questions of the German arbitration statute to procedural innovations, evidence-taking in international proceedings, and the interface between arbitration and state courts. Complementary coverage of mediation, mini-trials, and other ADR mechanisms acknowledges that arbitration operates within a broader ecosystem of dispute resolution.

Case reporting is the journal's backbone. Decisions of the Bundesgerichtshof and the Oberlandesgerichte on arbitration matters are published and annotated, as are significant rulings from foreign courts, giving practitioners a current map of how courts supervise and support arbitration. Published arbitral awards, including awards from institutions such as the ICC, the DIS, the Vienna International Arbitral Centre, and the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, offer rare insight into tribunal reasoning, since most commercial awards remain confidential.

The institutional pages keep readers current on the organizations that administer arbitration: new rules, fee schedules, appointments, and annual statistics. The DIS page carries the German Arbitration Institute's announcements, while ArbAut news covers the Austrian arbitration community. Short news items round out each issue with legislative developments and institutional reports. Every issue's content is thus a blend of scholarship, practice guidance, and professional intelligence for the arbitration bar.

A further dimension of the journal's coverage is the comparative view it offers across the German-speaking jurisdictions. Developments in Austrian and Swiss arbitration law are followed systematically, and the cooperation with the Basel publisher Helbing Lichtenhahn underlines the journal's commitment to that triangular perspective. For German practitioners who advise on disputes seated in Zurich, Vienna, or Frankfurt, the ability to track all three systems in a single periodical is a practical advantage. The journal also notes significant reforms and rule changes from the major international institutions, so readers stay oriented in a procedural landscape where the ICC, LCIA, SIAC, and other bodies periodically revise their frameworks.

Organization and Ownership

SchiedsVZ is published by Verlag C.H. Beck GmbH & Co. KG of Munich, in cooperation with the DIS Deutsche Institution für Schiedsgerichtsbarkeit e.V. and the Helbing Lichtenhahn Verlag of Basel. C.H. Beck, headquartered at Wilhelmstrasse 9, 80801 Munich, is Germany's preeminent legal publisher, and the journal sits within its portfolio of specialist legal periodicals. The ISSN is 1610-322X, and the journal appears every two months, six issues per year.

The partnership with the DIS is structural, not merely nominal: the institute co-publishes the journal, its members receive it as part of their membership, and its announcements have a dedicated section. Editorial responsibility follows the standards of German legal publishing, with contributions solicited from the leading scholars and practitioners of the field. Pricing reflects the specialist audience: single issues of recent volumes are listed at seventy-nine euros, and the publisher offers trial subscriptions to new readers.

Digital Presence

The journal maintains its web presence at schiedsvz.de and is sold through the publisher's beck-shop.de platform, where subscriptions, single issues, and trial offers are handled. An online edition parallels the print journal, and the title is indexed in legal databases and library catalogues, with holdings in university law libraries across Germany, a measure of its standing as a scholarly reference.

For the international arbitration community, the journal's bilingual summaries and its English parallel title make its content discoverable beyond the German-speaking world. In a field where the leading journals publish in English, SchiedsVZ holds a distinctive position as the German-language journal of record, cited by courts, tribunals, and scholars working in the German arbitration tradition.

The Arbitration Journal's Role

SchiedsVZ exemplifies how a specialist legal journal can shape a field. By giving German arbitration law a dedicated forum, it has provided the doctrinal infrastructure, the case reporting, and the professional conversation through which a practice community defines itself. As arbitration continues to grow and to face new questions, from the reform of investor-state dispute settlement to the use of artificial intelligence in proceedings, the journal's combination of scholarly rigor and practice orientation keeps it at the center of the German-speaking arbitration world.