The Honourable Justice Vichai Ariyanuntaka was elected Secretary-General of the ALA on 25 November 2006 at the 9th ALA General Assembly held in Bangkok, Thailand. Justice Ariyanuntaka is a Research Justice of the Supreme Court. He graduated with law degrees from Chulalongkorn (LLB Hons), the University of Wales (LLB Hons) and the London School of Economics (LLM). He was qualified as a Thai as well as English Barrister-at-Law (Gray’s Inn). Judge Vichai was instrumental in the establishment of the first arbitration institute in Thailand, the Arbitration Office Ministry of Justice where he was Executive Director from 1990 to 1994.

From 1994 – 1997, he served as the Deputy Secretary-General of the Office of Judicial Affairs. When the Central Intellectual Property and International Trade Court was founded in 1997, Justice Ariyanuntaka as a founding member, brought with him the experience and expertise from ADR in general and arbitration in particular to the new court system. The Central IP&IT Court is now an internationally recognized forum as a model judicial system for dispute resolution in intellectual property matters. He joined the Central labour Court as Chief Judge in 2004. The tripartite system of the labour court, whereby employers and employees are represented by the respective employer associate judge and the employee associate judge, is a very much judicial form of arbitration. He is now a Research Justice of the Supreme Court, whose main responsibilities lie in Intellectual Property, Commercial and Economic Cases.