Beyond Borders: Law, Justice & the Future – Dr. Heba Al-Saleh

Beyond Borders: Law, Justice & the Future

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh on Private International Law, Global Trade, Arbitration, AI, and the Changing World of Legal Practice

🎙️ Interview Conducted, Compiled, and Published by Sundram Kumar | Astra Global Ventures

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh, Assistant Professor of Law, College of Law – Gulf University, Kingdom of Bahrain

Expert Profile Overview:

Position: Assistant Professor of Private International Law & Head of the Scientific Research Committee, College of Law, Gulf University, Kingdom of Bahrain (2025 – Present)
Legal Background: Attorney and Legal Consultant with over 14 years of extensive litigation experience across court tiers, commercial arbitration, and international contract drafting (Syria).
Education: Ph.D. in Law (Private International Law) with Distinction with Honors from Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt (2025).

Part 1: Formation of the Legal Mind

Question 1: What made the law seem so critically important to you? Not just as a profession, but as a way to understand how societies define what is just, permissible, and binding?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: For me, the law cannot be reduced to a mere profession or an academic discipline. In its essence, it is a way of life and a civilizational methodology. The law is the mirror reflecting a society’s degree of advancement and civilization, and it is the tool that transforms abstract values such as justice and equality into tangible, binding rules.

Through my work as a lawyer and academic, I realized that the true function of the law is not merely dispute resolution, but ensuring the equitable distribution of rights and duties, protecting individuals from arbitrary power, and providing a stable framework within which society can flourish.

Therefore, I view the law as a medium to understand not only “what is legitimate,” but “what a just society ought to be.”

Question 2: You combine legal practice, advanced study, research, and university teaching. What did each world teach you that the others could not?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: My journey with the law has passed through three complementary stations, each offering distinct lessons:

First, Academic Study: Provided the theoretical framework and foundational concepts, allowing me to grasp the logical structure of the law.
Second, Practical Practice in the Courtroom: Brought these concepts down to reality. Practice taught me that living law is not text in a textbook; it is a balance of interests, a conflict of arguments, and an evolving social reality.
Third, University Teaching and Research: Granted me the opportunity to delve deeply into legal concepts, deconstructing and rebuilding them.

Most importantly, teaching taught me an invaluable skill: how to translate legal complexity into simple, accessible language that students and society can understand. It is not enough to be a brilliant lawyer or a deep researcher; a true lawyer and academic is one who makes the law understandable, acceptable, and impactful within society’s consciousness with clarity and grace. This synergy among all three facets is what forms a balanced legal mind.

Question 3: Was there a specific moment that changed your understanding of what it means to be a lawyer? A moment when you realized your role goes beyond merely applying the law?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: Yes, there was a defining moment. It occurred during my legal practice in Syria—specifically while defending political detainees and civilian victims of severe human rights violations in Assad regime detention facilities during the war. In those cases, I faced situations where relying on traditional evidentiary proof was nearly impossible, yet there was a clear right and a human being whose voice deserved to be heard.

At that moment, I realized that a lawyer is not merely a spokesperson for legal text, but a guardian of equity when the balance of justice is distorted before a biased judiciary. Since that day, my professional creed has been to bridge two inseparable elements: rigorous legal argumentation and the human dimension that endows the law with its true meaning. Law without humanity becomes a rigid tool, and humanity without law becomes a helpless emotion.

Question 4: How do you navigate between legal practice, study, and research? How does each nourish the other?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: I view them as two sides of the same coin that cannot be separated:

Legal Practice: Brings real-world problems to the table. It teaches me how to precisely pinpoint a dispute, distinguish between what is essential and what is peripheral, and identify loopholes that text alone does not reveal.
Study and Research: Elevate these individual cases into general principles. What I encounter in an arbitration hall or courtroom today becomes the subject of academic research tomorrow—where I analyze its origins and compare it with other legal systems.

Conversely, what I study and research today transforms into a persuasive legal argument in a future pleading or a fresh perspective I offer my students in the lecture hall. This ongoing interaction between reality and principle is the sole safeguard against intellectual stagnation for legal professionals. Practice without theory is blind, and theory without practice is hollow.

Question 5: What is the most important quality the next generation of lawyers and legal professionals should possess, in your view?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: In my view, the two most critical qualities for the next generation are Intellectual Courage and Critical Thinking:

Courage: Is not merely courtroom advocacy; it is the courage to uphold justice even against the tide—the courage to say “this text is unjust” and seek an interpretation that fulfills the true purpose of the law.
Critical Thinking: Technical skills in drafting briefs and pleading can be learned. What cannot be easily taught is the ability to question the legal text and understand the social, economic, and political context from which a rule emerged.

A lawyer who merely applies the text literally is an “executor.” An impactful lawyer understands why the text was enacted, its effect on society, and how it can be developed to serve justice in our time. That is the distinction between someone who memorizes the law and someone who creates an impact through it.

Part 2: Law Across Jurisdictions

Question 6: Why is Private International Law important in our current era?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: Private International Law is often described as the “mathematics of the law,” which is an accurate characterization. It is the silent, invisible law governing every cross-border transaction. In today’s world, where corporations, individuals, data, and capital move at the click of a button, the significance of this discipline becomes paramount.

Its fundamental function is not to decide who is right in a dispute, but to determine which law governs the dispute and which judicial authority holds jurisdiction to resolve it. Without clear conflict-of-laws and jurisdictional rules, international trade and cross-border relations would collapse into chaos and legal uncertainty. Neither states nor investors invest in chaos; thus, Private International Law serves as the silent infrastructure underlying confidence in the global economy.

Question 7: In a complex international dispute, how do we determine which legal system is most suitable to apply? Do we look for the ‘strongest’ or other criteria?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: We do not look for the “strongest” legal system—that belongs to the logic of power, not the logic of law. In Private International Law, we seek the legal system that is “most closely connected” to the legal relationship in dispute. We rely on established, objective criteria recognized by international jurisprudence and legal scholars, such as: the place of contract execution or performance, the nationality or domicile of the parties, the location of the disputed property, and the place where the harm occurred.

The goal is not to impose one law over another, but to achieve procedural justice and guarantee predictability for the parties. Parties enter into contracts with specific expectations regarding the law governing their relationship; our role is to honor those legitimate expectations rather than surprise them with a foreign law disconnected from the transaction. This is how we achieve both stability and equity.

Question 8: How can the law handle pressure on traditional concepts like ‘domicile’ and ‘territory’ in the age of digitization and virtual companies?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: Traditional concepts in Private International Law—such as “domicile,” “territory,” and “corporate seat”—were established in a geographically static and physical world. Today, with the digital revolution, artificial intelligence, and virtual corporations, we face a genuine challenge. Where is the “domicile” of an individual who conducts their professional and social life entirely on digital platforms? Where is the “seat” of a company with no physical office whose servers and data are distributed across cloud networks in ten different countries?

The solution is not to abandon old concepts, but to expand and creatively adapt them. We need modernized frameworks such as: digital domicile, the virtual principal place of administration, and data location. The law faces a dual task: preserving the stability of rules people rely on while innovating new connecting factors capable of accommodating this changing reality. Otherwise, the law will remain perpetually one step behind technology.

Question 9: Digital trade can involve parties, servers, assets, and performance scattered across multiple jurisdictions. How should the law think about ‘place’ when the transaction has no clear physical center?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: In the era of digital trade, “place” is no longer a fixed physical or geographical concept. A single transaction may involve parties in one country, servers in a second, service delivery in a third, and an affected user in a fourth. Therefore, the law must shift from the traditional “territorial criterion” to the “effects criterion”.

The critical question is no longer where the server physically resides, but rather: Where is the affected user located? Where is the service actually consumed? Where are the core interests of the dispute centered? This is precisely the approach taken by modern legislation, such as the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which applies based on the “targeting” of users within the European Union rather than the physical location of the company. The bottom line is that the law must follow the human, not the wire or the server.

Question 10: Should the future of Private International Law seek greater harmonization among legal systems, or is accommodating legal diversity itself part of what gives this field value?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: The answer is: both together.

First, Harmonization is required in procedures: We need common rules regarding jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments. This ensures enforceability and provides investors with confidence.
Second, Accommodating Diversity is required in substantive law: The value of Private International Law lies precisely in its respect for global legal pluralism. Unifying all substantive laws is neither realistic nor desirable, as every society has its own values and legislative policies.

The delicate balance lies in harmonizing to ensure procedural justice, while allowing diversity to respect substantive values—always safeguarded by public policy (ordre public) rules in the enforcing state as a final safety mechanism. Effective Private International Law turns diversity into a source of richness rather than chaos.

Part 3: Trade, Power, and the Search for Justice

Question 11: International trade law speaks in the language of sovereign equality. Yet states enter the global trade system with vastly different economic and institutional power. How should the law respond to this contradiction?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: This contradiction lies at the heart of international trade law. The system is built on “formal sovereign equality,” yet reality reflects powerful nations and multinational corporations alongside developing countries and smaller institutions. The law cannot ignore this disparity, as ignoring it codifies injustice.

The legal response must operate through contractual equity, protecting the economically weaker party, and respecting public policy in developing nations. In practice, this requires balanced contractual terms, transparency rules, dispute settlement mechanisms that do not favor the powerful, and special exceptions for developing states—such as “Special and Differential Treatment” within the World Trade Organization (WTO). An effective trade law framework acknowledges real-world disparities and builds procedural and substantive guarantees to prevent exploitation, rather than pretending those disparities do not exist.

Question 13: Developing nations often face a double challenge: negotiating trade rules and possessing the legal capacity to defend their interests. How essential is access to sophisticated legal expertise to achieving genuine equality in international trade?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: Access to sophisticated legal expertise is an indispensable condition—not a luxury—for achieving genuine equality in international trade. The double challenge faced by developing nations is acute:

The Negotiation Challenge: WTO rules and international trade treaties are highly technical and complex. Lacking expertise during negotiations means signing blank checks and accepting obligations that may harm the national economy or relinquishing vital exemptions unwittingly.
The Litigation Challenge: International trade disputes are costly and require highly specialized legal teams. A state lacking this capacity risks losing its rights even when legally in the right.

Formal equality at the negotiating table is insufficient; there must be substantive equality in the capacity to comprehend, draft, and defend rules. Legal expertise transforms a state from a passive recipient of rules into an active architect capable of shaping them and safeguarding its national interests.

Question 14: Where should the line be drawn between legitimate protection of domestic interests and protectionism served as public policy?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: That line is delicate, as every state possesses the sovereign right to protect its legitimate interests. The problem arises when protectionism shifts from a tool to correct market failures into a mechanism to distort competition. The criteria distinguishing legitimate protection as public policy rest on three principles:

Proportionality: Is the protective measure necessary and proportionate to the stated public objective, or is it excessive?
Transparency: Are the rules clear and publicly accessible, or are they opaque and applied arbitrarily?
Non-discrimination: Is the protective measure applied equally to domestic and imported products, or does it unfairly target specific foreign entities?

When these conditions are met, protection remains legitimate public policy. When absent, it becomes disguised protectionism that harms international trade and erodes trust in the global system.

Question 15: The international trade system requires accommodating digital trade, data, services, and complex supply chains. Which fundamental assumptions of old trade law deserve reconsideration now?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: The primary assumption requiring overhaul is that a “good” is exclusively a physical item crossing a physical border. Traditional trade law was built on three outdated pillars:

Physical Borders: It assumed trade consisted of goods shipped in containers, whereas today data and digital services cross borders instantaneously without customs checkpoints.
Clear Final Products: It assumed a finished product originating from State A, whereas modern trade relies on global value chains where production is fragmented across dozens of countries.
Traditional Dumping and Subsidy Concepts: These were measured against physical product prices. How do we define “digital dumping” when a service is offered for free in exchange for user data monetization? How do we calculate subsidies for a cloud platform?

We need a modernized definition of trade that recognizes data as a commercial asset, alongside updated legal tools to address dumping and subsidies tailored to the platform economy.

Question 16: The WTO dispute settlement system faces a deep institutional crisis. What must any future system do right to restore functionality and trust?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: Restoring trust and functionality in any future system requires addressing the root cause rather than the symptoms. In my doctoral dissertation, “The Legal Regime of International Service Contracts,” I concluded that a primary flaw in the current WTO dispute settlement mechanism is the lack of effective binding enforcement and collective remedies. The current system primarily relies on withdrawing the non-compliant measure and granting a timeframe for compliance, with compensation calculated only from the expiration of that period—lacking collective mechanisms to compel non-compliant members.

To restore trust, a future system must accomplish three things:

Ensure Genuine Enforceability: The system must transition from advisory recommendations to a binding international judicial authority. A viable proposal is granting the International Court of Justice (ICJ) binding jurisdiction over all economic trade disputes that states fail to resolve amicably.
Speed and Efficiency: Leveraging the flexibility of the ICJ Statute—specifically Articles 26, 22, and 50—allows for the creation of specialized trade chambers, holding sessions in various locations, and utilizing technical experts to address caseloads promptly.
Provisional Measures: Activating the Court’s authority to issue provisional measures under Article 41 to preserve rights during proceedings prevents political escalation and protects parties’ interests pending final judgment.

Trust is not restored by administrative tweaks alone; trust returns when states know an independent, binding international judicial body will deliver swift justice.

Question 17: If asked to design an ideal international trade dispute settlement system from first principles, what would you keep and what would you deliberately leave behind?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: If designing the system from scratch, I would build on four non-negotiable pillars:

Independence: Independent judges appointed through mechanisms insulated from political pressure.
Speed: Binding timelines for adjudication and appeal, as delayed justice in commerce equals guaranteed economic loss.
Equity: Dedicated legal support for developing nations to ensure equality is substantive, not merely formal.
Enforceability: A system without enforcement is merely an advisory opinion; judgments must carry binding force backed by collective deterrence.

What I would deliberately leave behind: I would eliminate leverage based on “political and economic power.” A failing system is one respected only by small nations and ignored by powerful ones. An ideal system binds all equally—because compliance by powerful states is the ultimate test of international legal credibility.

Part 4: Arbitration, Technology, and Artificial Intelligence

Question 18: Why does international arbitration still command such influence in cross-border trade, and where does it offer what courts cannot?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: International arbitration retains its dominance because it offers three advantages national courts cannot match:

Neutrality: Parties choose neutral arbitrators and governing law, avoiding the domestic courts of either party.
Confidentiality: Proceedings are private, protecting sensitive business transactions and corporate secrets.
Global Enforceability: The 1958 New York Convention ensures arbitral awards are enforceable in over 170 countries—a degree of international reach no domestic court judgment possesses.

Arbitration is not merely an alternative to litigation; it is the dedicated judicial system for cross-border commerce.

Question 19: What must a company understand about an arbitration clause before signing an international contract—especially when disputes may involve multiple jurisdictions?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: A company must navigate three critical aspects:

The Law of the Arbitration Agreement: Identifying the procedural law governing the arbitration and determining which national courts maintain supervisory jurisdiction over the seat.
The Governing Law of the Main Contract: Recognizing that the substantive law governing the contract is distinct from the law governing the arbitration agreement (under the principle of separability of the arbitration clause).
Arbitrator Appointment and Multi-Party Mechanics: In complex, multi-jurisdictional disputes, poor drafting regarding tribunal formation can deadlock the entire arbitration process.

A poorly drafted arbitration clause leaves a contract unprotected. It should be negotiated with the same rigor as the core commercial terms.

Question 20: To what extent can the choice of seat, law, arbitrator, institution, and enforcement framework influence the outcome long before a dispute actually arises?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: The choice is decisive by up to 90%. Before a dispute occurs, these clauses predetermine who will judge, what law will apply, and where the award will be enforced. Selecting “London + English Law + ICC” yields a fundamentally different procedural and substantive dynamic than Cairo + Egyptian Law + CRCICA. These initial choices govern cost, duration, likelihood of success, and ultimate enforceability. Disputes are often won or lost at the negotiation table long before reaching the hearing room.

Question 21: With commercial relationships increasingly digitalized and cross-border, has jurisdiction become a weaker concept or simply more complex?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: Jurisdiction has become far more complex, not weaker. In the physical world, jurisdiction attaches to the location of goods or corporate headquarters. In the digital space, a server may be in Ireland, the company incorporated in the US, the user located in Saudi Arabia, and the data hosted in a cloud environment. The issue is not an absence of jurisdiction, but rather an overcrowding of competing jurisdictions. This creates jurisdictional clashes and makes international arbitration increasingly attractive as a neutral mechanism to bypass such impasses.

Question 22: Technology can make procedures faster, but speed is not justice. Where must efficiency yield to due process, human judgment, and procedural fairness?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: The red line must be drawn at three elements that cannot be automated:

Human Judgment: Assessing witness credibility, weighing conflicting evidence, and understanding commercial and cultural context.
Due Process: Safeguarding the right to defense, the opportunity to present one’s case, and equality of arms. An algorithm cannot decide to strip a party of their procedural rights.
Procedural Fairness: The genuine sense of justice—litigants must feel heard and understood by a human adjudicator.

Efficiency belongs to case management, document organization, and hearing schedules. Adjudication itself remains an inherently human responsibility.

Question 23: If artificial intelligence becomes a routine research or analysis tool in arbitration, what principles should govern its use so efficiency never compromises accountability?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: Three golden principles must apply:

Transparency: Full disclosure of when and how AI tools are used; truth cannot reside inside a “black box”.
Human Oversight: AI must serve as an assistant to the arbitrator, never a substitute. The final award must reflect human reasoning and accountability.
Auditability and Explainability: The system’s output must be traceable to verify reasoning and guard against AI hallucinations or biased data inputs.

AI can drive efficiency in legal research, while human judgment retains sole accountability for the award.

Question 24: Generative AI has disrupted familiar ideas about authorship and originality. What should the law ultimately protect: human creativity, investment, the resulting work, or something new?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: The law must prioritize protecting human creativity. Legal originality fundamentally relies on the human imprint; AI is an instrument, much like an artist’s brush. However, we cannot ignore economic investment. Developing models and curated datasets requires immense financial resources. A future framework should adopt a hybrid model:

Copyright protection for the human who provided creative direction, structuring, and expressive input.
A new neighboring (related) right to protect capital investment in model training and data infrastructure.

The generated output should not receive automatic protection per se; protection attaches to the human creativity and economic investment behind it.

Question 25: Intellectual property law has long relied on identifiable creators, owners, and brand identities. How should it respond to synthetic content, AI-generated identities, and digital impersonation?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: Current IP frameworks will struggle without adaptation. We need three immediate legal responses:

Mandatory Watermarking and Disclosure: Requiring visible or digital watermarks on synthetic content so the public knows its origin.
Redefining Authorship and Liability: Attributing legal responsibility for digital impersonation or brand infringement to the user who commanded the generation and the entity that published it. Human identity and persona must be protected against unauthorized synthetic replication.
Platform Responsibility: Hosting platforms must implement effective, expedited notice-and-takedown mechanisms similar to DMCA frameworks for synthetic infringements.

Question 26: Do you expect AI to be absorbed into existing legal frameworks through gradual reform, or will it force lawmakers to rethink ownership and liability structures entirely?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: It will begin with gradual reform—as seen in the EU AI Act. However, incremental reform is a temporary phase. Ultimately, AI will force a fundamental legislative rethink of two core concepts:

Ownership: Who owns moments or outputs generated by a machine trained on billions of third-party data points?
Liability: Who bears legal responsibility when an autonomous model makes a decision causing harm that even its developers cannot trace or explain?

I anticipate 5 to 10 years of incremental updates followed by a major structural revolution in legal doctrine.

Question 27: For cross-border businesses, what legal risks created by AI and digital trade are currently underestimated?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: The three most underestimated risks are:

Jurisdictional Clashes: The same AI algorithm may comply with regulations in one jurisdiction while breaching laws in another, exposing cross-border operations to conflicting compliance orders.
Liability for Algorithmic Bias: If an automated hiring or credit-scoring system discriminates against specific groups, determining liability between the deploying company, software vendor, and data developer remains a significant legal exposure.
Cross-Border Data Transfer Sanctions: AI models rely on continuous data flows across borders; navigating conflicting national data localization laws and strict privacy regimes (like GDPR) carries immense regulatory penalties.

Question 28: Who is responsible when an AI-assisted decision causes harm? How should the law assign liability when human and automated judgment intertwine?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: The law must establish a “chain of liability” rather than blaming the technology:

The Developer: Liable for inherent design flaws, training data bias, or lack of safety protocols.
The Operator/Deployer: Liable for failing to perform adequate oversight, testing, or domain-specific risk assessments before deployment.
The Human User: Liable if they ignored system warnings or operated the tool outside its designated scope.

The law should adopt a rebuttable presumption of liability against the entity deploying the system, preserving their right of recourse against the developer. Liability must always trace back to a natural or legal person; we cannot permit an automated system to serve as a legal shield.

Part 5: Regional Integration and Legal Education

Question 29: The Gulf is becoming an increasingly important environment for investment, trade, arbitration, and knowledge. What is the most important legal development for the region’s next chapter?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: The pivotal development will be transitioning from regional legislative competition to Gulf legal integration. Over the past decade, GCC states focused on establishing distinct financial, legal, and arbitration centers. The next strategic phase should focus on:

Automatic Mutual Recognition and Enforcement of Judgments across GCC jurisdictions.
Unified Model Laws for arbitration, e-commerce, digital trade, and investment protection.

The goal is for foreign investors to view the Gulf as a single unified legal market rather than six separate regulatory systems—transforming the region into a global economic power center.

Question 30: How can Gulf jurisdictions engage confidently with international legal standards while preserving the strengths and legitimacy of their legal traditions?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: By adopting the principle of “Universality in Form, Distinctiveness in Substance”:

Procedural Universality: Adopting international best practices regarding transparency, efficiency, court technology, and case management, as investors expect familiar procedural frameworks.
Substantive Distinctiveness: Anchoring core principles in Islamic jurisprudence and local legislative values as a foundational moral compass.

Legitimacy is achieved through thoughtful integration rather than imitation. When the world observes international procedural excellence operating alongside deep local legal heritage, trust is earned while identity is preserved.

Question 31: Would greater harmonization of commercial law and Private International Law across Gulf and Arab jurisdictions tangibly boost regional trade, or is diversity among systems an advantage?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: Harmonization will tangibly boost trade; diversity can serve as an advantage, but only at a later stage. Today, legal uncertainty remains a barrier for small and medium-sized enterprises seeking regional expansion. Harmonizing rules on conflict of laws, enforcement of judgments, and standard commercial contracts reduces transaction costs and builds market confidence. Diversity can remain as a “legislative laboratory” where jurisdictions innovate within specific sub-fields (such as specialized arbitration in one state or tech regulation in another). However, unifying the core baseline rules must come first.

Question 32: What can Bahrain do to strengthen its position as a leading hub for legal education, international business, and cross-border dispute resolution?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: Bahrain possesses two historic advantages: cultural openness and deep financial expertise. To solidify its leadership, it can focus on three initiatives:

In Legal Education: Establishing specialized postgraduate programs in Digital Trade Law and International Arbitration in partnership with global academic institutions, training regional expertise locally.
In Dispute Resolution: Developing a specialized international arbitration platform tailored to FinTech and Islamic Finance disputes—a niche where Bahrain holds distinct authority.
In Legislation: Becoming the first regional jurisdiction to enact an “Experimental AI Regulatory Sandbox Law,” attracting tech innovators by offering legal clarity.

Question 33: As Gulf economies diversify beyond traditional sectors, what role must legal institutions play in making this transformation permanent, sustainable, and reliable?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: Legal institutions must act as the “soft infrastructure” supporting economic diversification, parallel to physical infrastructure like ports and transportation:

Permanence: Enacting stable, forward-looking legislation that offers long-term predictability for investments in emerging sectors like renewable energy and technology.
Sustainability: Developing specialized judicial divisions that understand complex emerging industries and deliver consistent, swift judgments.
Reliability: Enforcing institutional governance, anti-corruption measures, and transparency. Modern capital flows toward legal certainty.

Question 34: What should a law student learn at university that no database, search engine, or AI assistant can truly provide?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: AI can retrieve information instantaneously, but it cannot impart three vital qualities:

Legal Judgment: The ability to weigh competing arguments and exercise discretion in complex gray areas. Law is 20% textual rule and 80% analytical evaluation.
Professional Ethics: A steadfast dedication to justice, integrity, and the attorney’s duty to the court and society—not just the client.
Persuasion and Rhetoric: How to construct a compelling argument, understand judicial discretion, and negotiate effectively. These are human skills that cannot be programmed.

At the College of Law at Gulf University in Bahrain, we train students how to think as lawyers, rather than search like machines. We combine theoretical grounding with practical application to prepare graduates for immediate professional contribution—a credit to the academic leadership guiding our institutional development, led by the President of Gulf University, Prof. Dr. Mohanad Al-Mashhadani, and the Dean of the College of Law, Prof. Dr. Firas Mohammad.

Question 35: How can legal education foster independent judgment rather than producing graduates skilled only at finding citations?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: By shifting from a model of “rote memorization” to a “problem-solving model”:

Case-Based Teaching: Presenting students with complex, realistic cases featuring incomplete facts and requiring them to construct balanced solutions.
Debating Opposing Positions: Requiring students to advocate positions they personally disagree with to build objective analysis and break confirmation bias.
Critical Assessment: Designing examinations around analytical questions (e.g., “How would your legal analysis change if this statutory text were amended, and why?”) rather than passive recall.

We must cultivate innovative, analytical minds rather than passive repositories of information.

Question 36: What makes a legal research question truly important? Is originality enough, or must good research change how a real-world problem is understood?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: Originality alone is insufficient. Original research on an irrelevant topic yields little real-world value. A vital research question requires Originality + Impact. It must address two inquiries:

Does this work contribute a novel perspective to scholarly literature?
Does it matter? Will it reshape how a judge, legislator, practitioner, or business understands a real-world challenge?

The most impactful legal research addresses complex practical dilemmas in courts or markets and constructs a rigorous theoretical framework for their resolution.

Question 37: What is the responsibility of universities to ensure legal studies from the Arab world contribute to international dialogues rather than remaining confined regionally?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: Our responsibility is threefold:

Language: Overcoming linguistic barriers by encouraging bilingual publication in Arabic and English, ensuring Arab legal scholarship engages global audiences.
Exporting Regional Insights: Moving beyond importing foreign legal doctrine to exporting our unique legal frameworks, practical challenges, and solutions to international legal discourse.
Institutional Collaboration: Establishing joint research initiatives with leading international universities. Scholarship achieves global impact when debated internationally.

Question 38: What is one assumption about the law that you believe the profession has become too comfortable accepting?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: The most dangerous assumption is that “the law is neutral and purely technical.” The profession often embraces this assumption because it is convenient; it allows professionals to say “I am merely applying the text” and avoid engagement with broader societal responsibility.

However, every statutory choice, judicial interpretation, and contractual clause reflects underlying values. Law is an instrument shaped by human choices; forgetting this reduces legal professionals to technicians rather than guardians of justice.

Question 39: After years of practice, teaching, and research, has your understanding of justice become more certain or more complex?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: It has become both more complex and more certain simultaneously. It is more complex because I have observed that justice is rarely simple; it requires balancing competing rights, weighing the letter against the spirit of the law, and reconciling legal rules with social reality.

Yet, it has become more certain in its core essence: justice means every party knows they were fairly heard, regardless of the outcome. Procedural fairness is fundamental—when people trust the process, they respect the result.

Question 40: If you could leave one intellectual principle with the next generation of lawyers, what would you want them to carry with them?

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: A single principle: “Be an advocate for the principle, not merely for the party.” It is easy to defend a client through any available tactic. It is far more demanding to ask: Does this legal stance strengthen the integrity of the law over time? Will this argument serve justice a decade from now?

The next generation will navigate artificial intelligence, hyper-complex cross-border contracts, and intense commercial pressures. If they hold fast to this principle, legal practice will remain a noble calling rather than a mere commercial enterprise—preserving the force of law over the law of force.

Question 41: Final Reflection

Dr. Heba Al-Saleh: When titles and positions fade, I hope three contributions remain:

For the Law: That I contributed to demonstrating that law is not a rigid text, but an instrument of trust—a system respected by powerful states before small ones, where vulnerable parties find protection. My doctoral thesis was a step on this journey, and I hope my future research builds upon it.
For My Students: That I instilled a single habit: “Reflect deeply before citing a text.” We do not merely need graduates skilled at legal research; we need independent minds capable of sound judgment—lawyers who view their profession as a mission.
For Society: That I left a lasting impact renewing people’s faith that justice is attainable; that conflict need not be destructive; and that a fair, efficient legal path exists. If a single individual leaves a courtroom or arbitration hall saying, “I felt I was heard with fairness,” that is the true legacy.

Ultimately, I do not measure success by titles, but by a simple aspiration: “To leave the legal system better than I found it.”

With highest respect and appreciation,
Dr. HEBA SAAD AL-SALEH
Assistant Professor of Law, Gulf University, Kingdom of Bahrain

🏛️ Professional Credentials & Research

Selected Academic Publications:
- “The Global Evolution of AI-Powered Legal Assistance Systems: Balancing Opportunities and Ethical Challenges” | Springer Nature | 2025 | Scopus Q4.
- “Intellectual Property Right Protection of Image Data Using DCT and Spread Spectrum-Based Watermarking” | International Journal of Drug Delivery Technology (IJDDT) | 2025 | Scopus Q3.
- “Intellectual Property Implications of the Nagoya Protocol on Bioanalytical Research of Natural Products” | Scientific Culture | 2025 | Scopus Q1.
- “Effectiveness of the Dispute Settlement System under the World Trade Organization (WTO)” | Al-Majalla Al-Qanuniyya, Faculty of Law, Cairo University | May 2025.
- Doctoral Dissertation: “The Legal Framework for International Service Contracts” | Ain Shams University, Egypt | 2025 | Grade: Distinction with Honors.
Professional Memberships & Licenses:
- License to Practice Law | Syrian Bar Association (2015) — Research Thesis: “Jurisdiction of the Military Judiciary”.
- Active Member | Syrian Bar Association (2012 – Present).
- Advisory Board Member | Human Thought Foundation for Media, Culture, and Law, Baghdad, Iraq (2024 – Present).
Digital Profiles & Links: Google Scholar Profile | ORCID: 0009-0002-8859-2399

“Ultimately, I do not measure success by titles, but by a simple aspiration: To leave the legal system better than I found it.” — Dr. Heba Al-Saleh

Beyond Borders: Law, Justice & the Future: Dr. Heba Al-Saleh on Private International Law and Global Trade