Douglas Harrison is a Member Arbitrator and Mediator of international and domestic business disputes. He has been a presiding arbitrator, co-arbitrator and sole arbitrator of ad hoc commercial arbitrations and of arbitrations under the AAA, ADRIC, ICC, ICDR, ICDR Canada, NADAP and Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce Rules, in disputes arising in the biomedical, construction, energy, financial, land development, manufacturing, non-profit, and public infrastructure sectors. His recent mediation mandates have included breach of contract claims, defamation cases, environmental matters, oppression claims and partnership disputes.
Doug is listed in Chambers (Most in Demand Arbitrators – Canada – Band 3), the Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory for commercial arbitration (Repeatedly Recommended), Lexology (WWL) – Arbitration 2025, Lexology (WWL) (Canada) for commercial arbitration (Recommended), Best Lawyers in Canada for international arbitration and alternative dispute resolution (as well as 2025 “Lawyer of the Year” in International Arbitration in Toronto), and has also been recognized as an expert in global product liability law by Legal Media Group’s Expert Guides.
He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, a member of the CPR Panels of Distinguished Neutrals as both an arbitrator and mediator (Global Panel, Product Liability Panel, and Pro Bono Panel) and is on the arbitration rosters of AAA-ICDR, ICDR Canada, ICC Canada, the ADR Institute of Canada, the Canadian Transportation Agency, the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission and the Scottish Arbitration Centre.
Doug is the chair of the Toronto Commercial Arbitration Society and is a Co-Chair of the University Tribunal of the University of Toronto. He is the Director and a faculty member of the TCAS Gold Standard Course on Commercial Arbitration, a 40-hour course that permits students who successfully complete it to apply for a Q.Arb. designation from the ADR Institute of Canada. He is on the organizing committee of CanArbWeek and is a member of the Arbitration Committee of the ADR Institute of Canada, the executive of the ICC Canada Arbitration Committee and the North America Sub-Committee of the Campaign for Greener Arbitrations. He is a member of the London Court of International Arbitration, the Institute for Transnational Arbitration, the International Council for Commercial Arbitration, and the International Arbitration Institute. He is also a former Vice-Chair of the International Mediation Committee of the ABA International Law Section.
For over 30 years, Doug was with Stikeman Elliott LLP in Toronto conducting a broad corporate-commercial litigation and arbitration practice that included complex, high-value matters involving, among other things, breach of contract, competition law, insolvency and restructuring, supplier-procurement disputes, and class actions in a variety of sectors including aerospace, mining, chemicals, food processing, logistics and media. His practice also included environmental law, product liability, defamation, professional liability, and directors’ and officers’ insurance.
Doug has written and spoken widely about arbitration, including recent papers on the enforcement of awards in Canada against states and state-owned enterprises for IAI’s Series on International Arbitration, and on removing arbitrators for incapacity or delay for the Canadian Journal of Commercial Arbitration and New York Dispute Resolution Lawyer. He contributes to Law360 Canada on arbitration and international law topics. He is a co-author of The Law of Product Warnings and Recalls in Canada, 2nd ed. (LexisNexis Canada, 2019) and has served as a Sessional Instructor on advocacy at the Queen’s University Faculty of Law in Kingston, Ontario. Prior to practicing law, Doug was a sports journalist based in Toronto and Paris.
More information available at https://harrisonadr.com/