• Journal of Arbitration Studies
• /
• v.24 no.3
• /
• pp.79-103
• /
• 2014

In light of increasing international trade in recent years, international arbitration has been more widely used by international parties to resolve their conflicts. Thus, the need for reliable and effective enforcement of foreign arbitral awards has amplified. To facilitate the enforcement of foreign arbitral awards, the New York Convention lists grounds for the refusal of recognition and enforcement in Article V. This paper examines prominent U.S. case law on Article V(1)(b), which is put in place to ensure that arbitration proceedings are conducted properly in accordance with due process requirements: proper notice to parties and an opportunity to a fundamentally fair hearing. This examination of case law conveys that U.S. courts refuse to enforce foreign arbitral awards pursuant to Article V(1)(b) only when due process rights of the party against whom the award is to be enforced are clearly violated by the arbitral tribunal. This paper also reveals that U.S. courts mainly defer to arbitral tribunals' discretion, especially as to evidentiary matters. Therefore, it is predicted that U.S. courts will likely continue to narrowly construe the grounds in Article V to facilitate reliable and effective enforcement of foreign arbitral awards in the U.S.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
• /
• v.26 no.1
• /
• pp.107-134
• /
• 2016

International arbitration is the important field of applying CISG and the backbone of uniform law developed by CISG. Now CIETAC tribunals like courts of contracting states apply CISG precisely, which is beneficial to improving the quality and the credit of arbitral cases. Arbitration has the characters of independence and the non-government. the legal foundation of arbitral tribunal's applying CISG are the national arbitral law, the applicable arbitral procedures and usages of arbitration, not for performing international obligations under the CISG. CIETAC mainly use China Contract Law and CISG over the cases of sale of goods. Because of no provisions on recovery of differential price loss (equal to article 75 and 76 of CISG) Chinese tribunals have more discretion in determining the sum of damages under the China Contract Law. Applying China Contract Law may not beneficial to aggrieved party.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
• /
• v.9 no.1
• /
• pp.115-137
• /
• 1999

The UNCITRAL, during its thirty-two session in 1999 discussed certain issues and problems identified in interactional commercial arbitration practice. The issues discussed include certain aspects if conciliation proceedings ; the legislative requirement of a written form for the arbitration agreement ; arbitability ; soverign immunity ; consolidation of more than one case into one arbitral proceedings ; confidentiality of information in arbitral proceedings ; rasing claims in arbitral proceedings for the purpose of set-off ; decisions by "turncated" arbitral tribunals liability of arbitrators ; power by the arbitral tribunal to award interest ; costs of arbitral proceedings ; enforceability of interim measures of protection ; and discretion to enforce an award that has been set aside in the state of origin. Among those issues discussed, most of States agreed that the issues relating to certain aspects of conciliation proceedings ; the legislative requirement of a written form for the arbitration agreement ; enforceability of interim measures of protection ; and discretion to enforce an award that has been set aside in the State of origin should have priority over other issues. The UNCITRAL may wish to consider the desirability of preparing uniform provisions on any of those issues, possibly indicating whether further work should be towards a legislative text (such as a model legislative provision or a treaty) or a non-legislative text (such as a model contractual rule).

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
• /
• v.25 no.1
• /
• pp.65-86
• /
• 2015

Under current international investment law clear criteria to determine standards of indirect expropriation are absent. Arbitral tribunals determine on a case-by-case whether an indirect expropriation has occurred by conducting a fact-based inquiry. However, three common determination standards can be inferred by analyzing prior arbitration cases. The appropriate analytical framework that can be applied to determine whether a state's measure constitutes an indirect expropriation is as follows. i) the degree of economic invasion of the state's action into the foreign investor's property rights and durability of the period, ii) interference with the foreign investor's distinct and reasonable investment-backed expectations, and iii) the nature, purpose and character of the state's measure. Therefore, it is necessary to fully acknowledge and to utilize strategically this determination standard. However, derived standards cannot be applied to all disputes en masse. So, it is desirable to exclude ambiguity and to clearly define the determination standard of indirect expropriation in investment agreements, since arbitral tribunals can apply different determination standards on a case-by-case basis. And, based on the discussions until now, more developed standards and direction in response to demand should be established through consistent analysis and review of precedents related to indirect expropriation. Lastly, This study is expected to be a useful guideline to prepare a necessary countermeasure to prevent dispute related to indirect expropriation beforehand or in case of dispute occurrence.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
• /
• v.30 no.1
• /
• pp.3-37
• /
• 2020

The Korean Arbitration Act (KAA) enacted in 1966 was entirely revised in 1999, adopting the 1985 UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration. Korea is trying to be an international arbitration hub in the region, taking advantage of its geographical location in Asia and its highly open economy. KAA was revised in 2016 again in order to reflect the criticisms against the previous KAA, changes in the arbitration environment, and the 2006 amendment to the UNCITRAL Model Law. The basic direction of the revision was to maintain the UNCITRAL Model Law system and to deal with the national arbitration and international arbitration in the same framework. The scope of revision covers all fields of arbitration, including arbitration agreements, arbitrators, arbitral proceedings, interim measures of the arbitral tribunals, recognition/enforcement of arbitral awards, and their annulment. This paper aims to introduce the important issues of the 2016 revision of KAA, to offer important information discussed in the process of revision, and thus to help those concerned in the interpretation and implementation of KAA. The 2016 revision of KAA is expected to help greatly in promoting not only the national arbitration, but also the international arbitration in Korea.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
• /
• v.22 no.3
• /
• pp.215-238
• /
• 2012

This paper is to review the interim measures of arbitral tribunals in international commercial arbitration and to compare the emergency arbitrator systems of international arbitration institutions including the ICDR, SCC, SIAC, ACICA, and ICC. Most arbitration legislation and arbitration rules permit the arbitral tribunal to grant orders for interim measures of protection. Orders for interim measures by the arbitral tribunal are not self-enforcing. However, the revised articles with regard to interim measures of UNCITRAL Model Law of 2006 are regarded to contribute significantly to the effectiveness of interim measures in international commercial arbitration. A party that needs urgent interim or conservatory measures that cannot await the constitution of an arbitral tribunal may make an application for such measures. Major international arbitration institutions have their own rules and provisions for the emergency arbitrator system, which was set forth first by the ICRD in 2006. The application requirements for emergency arbitrators are almost the same. However, there are significant differences in details such as appointments and applications for challenging emergency arbitrators, the process and form of the emergency arbitrator's decision, etc. Therefore, it will be necessary to consider these differences for more desirable emergency arbitrator proceedings in Korea.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
• /
• v.32 no.2
• /
• pp.115-133
• /
• 2022

This article examines the Practical Suggestions for Promoting of Virtual Hearings in International Arbitration. COVID-19 had an prompt and meaningful impact on the practice of international arbitration. Nevertheless arbitral institutions, arbitral tribunals, and other participants learned quickly how to deal with this new challenge. The use of virtual or online hearings has been gaining popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Either with the help of arbitral institutions or by themselves, the parties realized that the only way to safeguard a hearing at all was to run it virtually. In fact, hearings by video conference or other technical means seemed to be the magic solution. One of the leading arbitration institutions, i.e. the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris has amended its Arbitration Rules to accept the subjects of recent international arbitration practice. Other arbitral institutions have similarly amended their respective rules. Many recent and adaptable institutional arbitration rules, either expressly or implicitly, allow for hearings to be conducted remotely. The trend has already been set by the leading institutions as ICC, LCIA, ICSID, SCC SIAC, and many more will follow. In short, enthusiasts of virtual hearings even believe that virtual hearings are "the new normal".

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
• /
• v.57
• /
• pp.61-78
• /
• 2013

The purpose of this study is to clarify the standard of fair and equitable treatment. Although most international investment treaties prescribe fair and equitable treatment that is the obligation to provide fair and equitable treatment to foreign investor, there is no clear definition and specific elements of fair and equitable treatment. Through the arbitral award cases we can find that tribunals have interpreted to include six principles; Due process & Protection from denial of justice, Good faith, Reasonableness & Nondiscrimination, Compliance with contractual obligation, Full protection and security, Transparency & Protection of the investor's legitimate expectations. This study suggest that host countries and investors focus on international trends concerning investment disputes in order to avoid future disputes. So future disputes can be prevented and prepared in advance.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
• /
• v.64
• /
• pp.99-128
• /
• 2014

Last year, Seoul International Dispute Resolution Center(SIDRC) was set up to facilitate and promote international arbitration in Korea. This study was focused on the revision of arbitration rules such as ICC, SIAC, HKIAC and JCAA. As a leading arbitration institution in the world, ICC has tried continuously to provide more efficient service to their client by adopting emergency arbitrator(EA) & multi party arbitration. Other three institutions also introduced almost same mechanism to compete each other. These two new system is very innovative in international arbitration. First of all, EA was designed to provide interim measure service to preserve or protect parties' right before the constitution of arbitral tribunal. Arbitration institutions and arbitral tribunals should be careful to decide these requests are legitimate or not because too hasty approval on joinder or consolidation without full consideration such as parties' intention or argument may issue another serious problem - setting aside an award rendered after joined or consolidated.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
• /
• v.33 no.2
• /
• pp.85-108
• /
• 2023

In international commercial arbitrations that arise from an international commercial contract, arbitral tribunals ruling on the merits of the arbitration apply the law governing the contract. The parties to contract are free to designate the law under the principle of parties autonomy. This paper examines this principle under the Korean Arbitration Act, and makes some legislative suggestions. For this purpose, this paper first discusses what is the scope of matters covered by the law governing the contract, what are the rules of conflict-of-laws for determining the law governing the contract, and what happens when the arbitral tribunal incorrectly applies the law governing the contract? Then, this paper further goes to examine issues such as the form of choice-of-law agreement, the explicit or implicit choice of law, the parties' ability to choose the rules of law including lex mercatoria, the change of choice-of-law agreement, the independence of choice-of-law clause.