In response to complexity and diversity of a social phenomenon, the dispute also is various, therefore can not be settled efficiently by means of court adjudication to which applies a law strictly. To overcome such problems we are going to seek to make use of arbitration. According to Korean Arbitration Act Art. 3 (1), any dispute in private laws would be the object of arbitral proceedings. It could be the object of arbitral proceedings that disputes which are capable of a settlement by arbitration. It is a matter for debate that disputes containing punitive damages may be resolved by arbitration. This problem is concerning the arbitrability of the subject-matter of a dispute. To offer some solution to these issues, it is necessary to inquire into the nature of punitive damages. the policy and function of alimony, the fair apportionment of a loss. Moreover, international relations formed with international transactions should be considered. Punitive damages would be the object of arbitral proceedings as the dipute in private laws. When punitive damages pursue only punishment in the domestic arbitration that there is not foreign factors, arbitral tribunal could not make arbitral award containing punitive damages. However, if punitive damages are admitted under the rules applicable to substance of dispute, and there is the arbitration agreement in which is implied that the parties agree to submit to an arbitral award, arbitral tribunal could make arbitral award containing punitive damages in international arbitration. When it is questionable whether it is offend against our public policy or not, that we accept the effect of arbitral award containing punitive damages, and we admit the enforcement of it, we have to take the nature of punitive damages, the policy and function of alimony, the fair apportionment of a loss and the stability of international transactions into consideration.

Korea Supreme Court has cancelled four cases of thirty-nine Arbitral awards made by Korean Commercial Arbitration Board since Korea arbitration act was enacted in 1966. Three cases of them were cancelled by the reason of the arbitrator's disqualification in relation to impartiality or independence and the other to arbitration agreement enable to select the lawsuit or arbitration. When a person is approached in connection with his possible appointment as an arbitrator or has already been appointed as such, he shall without delay disclose all circumstances likely to give rise to justifiable doubts as to his impartiality or independence according to the one of the article 13 of Korean Arbitration Act. Upon being notified of the appointment as an arbitrator, each arbitrator shall immediately disclose in writing to the Secretariat any circumstances which might cause reasonable doubt about impartiality or independence. An arbitration agreement shall be made clearly and in writing not to appeal to the court or to be brought in the court. However most of the korean construction contracts have the arbitration agreement clause enable to appeal to the court or the arbitration on government official's advice. Many of these disputes are resolved by litigation after the precedent(Law case number : 2003da318) set by the Supreme Court on August 22, 2003 between the Korea(government) and the Korea Railroad or abandoned its attempt to arbitration. But each year, about four hundreds of arbitration business transactions were resolved arbitration, the voluntary submission of a dispute to an impartial person or persons for final and binding determination. Arbitration has proven to be an effective way to resolve these disputes privately, promptly, and economically.

According to Japanese Patent Act, the Japanese Patent Office, administrative organization, was authorized to decide validation of patent. However, Supreme Court of Japan held that a court is able to decide the invalidation of patent in 11th April, 2000, which caused the reform of Japanese Patent Act in June 2004. Reformed Patent Act established the article 104-3 and makes it for a court to decide the patentability where there are grounds for a patent invalidation. Through this amendment to the Patent Act, the legislative system to decide the patent validation has been reorganized and furthermore alleged infringer is allowed to argue against the patent validation by making use of infringement litigation procedure through defenses against patent invalidation as well as invalidation trial procedure for to file a request for a trial for patent invalidation to the Japanese Patent Office. That is to say, the article 104-3 was established in the Japanese Patent Act in the wake of Kilby, and thus a court, which is judicial authority, not administrative disposition agency is also able to decide the patent validation. Thus this article discuss how a court, the authority of which only patent infringement cases fell under, has been authorized to arbitrate cases about the patent validation and the decision of the patent validation in a court.

Today's arbitrations see themselves as the most effective scheme for dispute resolution in a variety of transactional context. While some kind of ADR system was already introduced in Korea as of 2007 with revision of the Consumer Basic Law, consumers' needs in dispute resolution remain unmet. Recently one consumer arbitration case divides the U.S. Supreme Court. Of course, the result of the case is expected to affect tens of millions of arbitration agreements in the States which has the most developed scheme in consumer arbitrations. While Arbitration clauses in adhesion contracts are not automatically held to be substantively unconscionable, Class action waivers are one of the most controversial issues in consumer arbitration. In this study, with the theoretical background of consumer arbitrations general, and contractual defenses against adhesive contracts, reviewed are U.S. federal courts' attitudes toward certain consumer arbitration agreements including the class arbitration waiver. Moreover, several issues in AT&T case are examined for practical implications for consumer dispute resolution. All of these are expected to initiate further research to find some guidelines for the proper status and operation of consumer arbitration here in Korea.

There are two methods to resolve conflicts related to constructions which are through lawsuits and ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) just like any other conflicts. Along with the special characteristics pertaining to the conflicts related to constructions, the advantages that ADR is in possession of such as its cost, duration and professionalism, resolving conflicts through ADR has been considered to be more logical than any other options recently. In Korea's case at present, the resolution of conflicts regarding constructions through ADR is mostly dependent on administrative mediation or through arbitration. However, in the case of the administrative mediation, its usage rate is very low due to problems caused by problems in its running and effectiveness. In the case of arbitration, the services of the Korean Commercial Arbitration Board is comparatively used more but because of the fact that arbitration relies on a single trial system and the fact that its executive powers while having the same effectiveness as the final ruling does not get acknowledged leads to the phenomena of avoiding its usage. In addition, in relation to the selective arbitration clause, the problem of effectiveness of the arbitrative agreement is becoming a hindrance to the activation and promotion of the arbitration process. Furthermore, in the case where the ordering body is the government, the public servant involved in the case avoiding the arbitration process because of concerns of being penalized by the internal and external audit within the institution is becoming a problem as well. These problems are not only limited to conflicts regarding constructions and there needs to be actions taken to promote the activation of ADR by enacting a basic law. The more important issue at hand however is offering a resolution measure that would be the most appropriate for users and this could probably be done only through actions such as implementing the American partnering system or the dispute adjudication board system so that they can supervise the resolution of conflicts through mediation, arbitration, and assistance as well as offering consultations regarding conflicts related to constructions.

In the approaching 21th century, the outstanding development in international sports has established arbitration as the preferred form of dispute resolution. Because the form of sports dispute becomes more complicated and varied with the quantitative increase of them, the reasonable and rapid settlement of them must be the important problem. The Alternative Dispute Resolution(ADR) as the settlement of sports dispute is regarded as the one of effective dispute resolution method and merits notice. The Korean Sports Arbitration Committee has been established for dispute resolution between athletes and the clubs or alike. Now, We must review and complements the rules of the Korean Sports Arbitration Committee in order to be a representative system of domestic sports dispute arbitration that settle the sports dispute practically and efficiently.

PICC executes its role as a useful lex mercatoria in the continuously increasing international trade to be adopted as the standard criterion of prevention or dispute resolution. When considering the fact that GISG has not presented results beyond expectation in the past due to hard laws and legal deficiency, PICC, which possesses interpretation and supplementation function, is considered undoubtedly useful particularly in international commercial arbitration. As observed in the previously mentioned analysis on cases accumulated in UNILEX, PICC application and Arbitral tribunal in international contract between parties possess considerably large claim possibility and the number of actual application cases is continuously increasing. The fact that PICC has been composed as maximum common measures of continental and common law systems by traditional comparative legal scholars familiar with international trade can function as the fundamental principle in future global trade activity and can also act as the model law for uniting contract laws of nations. In this aspect, PICC can be evaluated to have considerably achieved enactment purpose of previous intention. However, additional topics that had not been accepted in the revised edition of PICC remain as assignments requiring solution, such as analysis and acceptance problem of comparative law, PR of PICC unfamiliar even to the relative parties of international trade and application in international contract, and absorption problem as model law in various domestic laws.

The term of defense procurement is used indifferently from defence acquisition. It consists of two sectors : domestic defense procurement and foreign defense procurement. For efficient and transparent defense procurement, Defence Acquisition Program Law in Korea suggests some principles including the purchase of domestically manufactured munitions in the first instance, and the Defense Acquisition Program Administration(DAPA)'s direct procurement of munitions, etc. By reviewing the characteristics, process, current situation and model contracts of defense procurement, it is found that domestic procurement contracts only propose the legal approach instead of arbitration and foreign procurement contracts suggest confusedly both the legal approach and arbitration for amicable disputes settlement. Therefore, it is quite recommended for arbitration organizations such as the Korean Commercial Arbitration Board(KCAB), the Korean Arbitrators Association(KAA), and the Korean Association of Arbitration Studies(KAAS) to foster a variety of strong awareness campaign, education and consulting programs, etc. for the popular use of arbitration clause. It will contribute to settle any disputes and controversies between the parties more speedy, economically and rationally, thereby reducing the costs, time and pains for solving them.

China and North America have been South Korea's biggest trading partner long time. As the volume of trade has been increasing, the disputes between Korean companies and Chinese Companies and between Korean companies and North American Companies have been increasing. If these disputes are settled by Arbitration, the parties appoint arbitrators who are empowered to proceed the arbitration procedure and have a power to render an arbitral award. Accordingly, it is very important for the parties to select who is an arbitrators in Arbitration. But if the parties doubt their arbitrator(s)'s fairness and independency, they can discharge them in accordance to law and arbitration institute's rules. In comparison with arbitrator system for way of selection and discharge among Korea, China and North America, some differences are found. First, if parties fail to appoint co-arbitrators or the presiding arbitrator by a mutual agreement, the court has the right to appoint them or him in Korea and North America whereas the Chairman of CIETAC choose him in China. Second, the authority to decide whether arbitrator is discharged owing to his fairness and independency, depends on arbitration institute and court in Korea and North American whereas it depends on the Chairman of CIETAC only.

There are more than two hundred arbitral institutions in China. Some of them are active in the development of online arbitration system, such as CIETAC and Guangzhou Arbitration Commission(GAC). GAC, founded in 1995, is the second largest arbitral institution in China which accepts more than 4,000 cases a year. With extensive experiences in arbitration, GAC has conducted online arbitration procedures since 2007. Moreover it opened the whole process of online hearing to the public through the Internet. With this background, this article aims to support the development of online arbitration through the analysis of GAC practices. To meet the purpose, status quo, rules and procedure of online arbitration of GAC are outlined, followed by introducing nine cases conducted by GAC. The scope of GAC online arbitration is comparatively narrow and the institution is still under the government supervision. But the practices of GAC proved that online arbitration is fully admissible and effective under the current legal framework.

This article examines the requirements of Article 37 of the ICDR International Arbitration Rules and issues that could arise if a party petitions a U.S. Federal Court to enforce an emergency arbitrator's Article 37 decision to grant pre-arbitration provisional relief. On May 1, 2006, ICDR introduced a new procedure for the granting of emergency arbitral relief under its ICDR Rules. The procedure enables a party to apply for emergency interim relief before the appointment of an arbitrator or tribunal to adjudicate the merits of the dispute. Instead, the application for emergency relief is considered by an emergency arbitrator appointed by the ICDR. In short, the ICDR has quickly appointed emergency arbitrator and resolved a challenge to an appointment within 36 hours. In addition, the emergency decisions have been issued within just a couple of weeks. In particular, we looked at what would happen after Article 37 emergency relief is granted. Based on my examination of U.S. cases on the enforceability of interim awards and orders, We conclude that U.S. courts would enforce Article 37 interim measures, whether they are characterized by the emergency arbitrator as an interim order or award. Where the situation warrants, arbitration executives should embrace and use emergency relief procedure of ICDR Rules.

In 2008, North Korea revised its Foreign Economic Arbitration Act. To some extent, the new Act reflected such international standard of arbitration as UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules. In this paper, the said Act will be evaluated, and then cooperation ways of South-North Korea on Inter-Korean Commercial Arbitration will be suggested. In 2007, the Ministry of Unification has designated the Korean Commercial Arbitration Board as Inter-Korean Arbitration Committee and has made efforts to prepare follow-up measures on the two Agreements of Inter-Korean Commercial Arbitration. In 2008 however, the follow-up measures has in fact been suspended. In order to revitalize the Inter-Korean commercial arbitration, some prerequisites must be satisfied. First, Inter-Korean Arbitration Committee for Inter-Korean commercial arbitration should re-open as soon as possible. Second, as North Korea recently shows interest in joining the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards(now so called New York Convention), Governmental Authority of Rep. of Korea should also actively assist and support their joining in New York Convention. Third, both Korean governments should carry out joint study on raising the efficiency of the arbitration system which they will use. Fourth, comparative study on arbitration systems used in both countries should be conducted. Also, it may is very timely to discuss the issue in international arbitration community such as "North-East Asia International Arbitration Conference" or other similar events. In conclusion, continuous study on prevention of commercial disputes between South-North Korea and ways to resolve disputes when they arise should be conducted.