2019 was a lively year for international arbitration in Latin America – especially in the international commercial arbitration arena, which is the focus of this post. Contributors to Kluwer Arbitration Blog reported mostly on favorable developments on arbitration-related legislation, case law and other initiatives. The year, however, ended with a regrettable situation in Peru, where…

There have been some false dawns but Thailand has become significantly more arbitration-friendly in recent years. This post briefly canvasses the recent developments and identifies potential areas for further development.   Amendments to the Thai Arbitration Act – Arbitrators and Representatives Allowed to Work in Thailand Previously, foreign arbitrators were required to undergo an onerous…

Introduction At the latest ODR Forum which was held on 29-31 October 2019 in Williamsburg, Virginia, Dr Anyu Lee presented on China’s vision of online dispute resolution (“ODR”). He discussed how far China has progressed in developing artificial intelligence (“AI”) tools for online courts, arbitration and mediation. He also described the potential of AI in…

2019 has been a busy year for international arbitration in Sub-Saharan Africa. Indeed, the year has brought an interesting wave of precedents, new domestic statutes, modern international investment agreements, and arbitration events. This post highlights and summarises some of the African developments covered in the Blog in 2019, with many thanks to the authors who…

To mark the 50th anniversary of the CEPANI, we are pleased to present you with this special issue of b-Arbitra, devoted to Supreme Courts and Arbitration. We are grateful to the eminent specialists who have agreed to deliver, for their respective jurisdictions, comprehensive reports of the Supreme Courts’ rulings in arbitration matters. Their overviews cover…

The swift and far-reaching development experienced by arbitration in Spain over the past few decades is unprecedented in the context of other arbitration-friendly jurisdictions. In little more than 40 years, a fully-fledged arbitration system was set up virtually from scratch. In 1977 Spain ratified the New York Convention without reservation, thus entering the international arbitration…

This year, I had the extraordinary pleasure of speaking at the Emirate Maritime Arbitration Centre (the “EMAC”) inaugural event of Dubai Arbitration Week 2019 (for the full presentation, see here). The EMAC, as readers may know, is the only arbitration institution specialized in the administration of maritime disputes through arbitration in the UAE and the…

Counsel ethics has been a recurring talking point in arbitration circles. Most recently, the topic was raised at the 2018 SIAC Congress, then again by a panel at the 2019 Australian Bar Association Conference. The continued interest in this issue is unsurprising. As arbitration becomes more international, we must increasingly confront the difficulties that arise…

The 98th Annual Meeting of the American Branch of the International Law Association (“ABILA”), known as ABILA’s International Law Weekend (“ILW”), took place in New York City on 10 – 12 October 2019. ILW, ABILA’s premiere annual event, featured 35 panels covering a broad range of topics of international law.1)The summary of the views expressed…

A recent case has shocked the international arbitration community: pre-trial detention was issued against three renowned arbitrators. Their crime? Determining their fees based on the amount of the dispute and having meetings with both parties to discuss the applicable rules and who will act as the Chairperson. In other words, behave as any other arbitrator…

Last week QMUL, in partnership with the Corporate Counsel International Arbitration Group (“CCIAG”), launched its first ever survey focusing exclusively on international investment. This is the tenth major empirical International Arbitration survey conducted by the School of International Arbitration at Queen Mary University of London. A link to the survey can be found here. The…

As the number of investor-state disputes grows, so does the number of applications for provisional measures. The recent empirical study conducted by the British Institute of International and Comparative Law and White&Case suggests that investors were more than twice as likely to obtain positive decisions on their requests than respondent states. The study also showed that…

Those applying treaties and interpreting them must remember two salient points: (1) as international adjudicators or as members of the judiciary they must apply a treaty not on the basis of discretionary powers and a judicial hunch but on the basis of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) and (2) lack of…

The Cold War era brought to life, in a strange way, a number of all-encompassing treaties dealing with major subjects such as international treaty-making, diplomatic relations, law of seas, etc. Even among the topics covered by these treaties were enforcement of foreign arbitral awards and investment disputes. However, it seems like the world has already…

The growing public interest in investment treaties and investor-State dispute settlement has prompted an increasing number of States to open to public view aspects of investment treaty negotiations. During the negotiation of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (‘TTIP’), for example, both the European Union and the United States sought to ‘maximise’ transparency in the…

The Vienna Convention rules for treaty interpretation (VCLT) routinely referred to by all international courts and tribunals are known to be the result of a compromise between different schools of interpretation and therefore notoriously flexible, in my view too flexible for the purposes of modern-day international dispute resolution. Cases are therefore won and lost according…

It is well settled in the practice of ICSID tribunals that the general rule of treaty interpretation embodied in Article 31(1) of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (“Vienna Convention”) applies to the interpretation of the Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States (“ICSID Convention”). While…

Legal Reasoning: Interpreting and Applying the Law1)Mary Mitsi, The Decision-Making Process of Investor-State Arbitration Tribunals (Kluwer 2019). When analysing the process of legal decision-making what might first come to mind is the dichotomy between the interpretation and the application of the law. These terms, in some circumstances, may be employed interchangeably due to the strong…

The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) was adopted and opened for signature on May 23, 1969, and entered into force on January 27, 1980. In the fifty years since the VCLT was opened for signature, it has become universally regarded as one of the most important instruments of treaty law. It has…

On 24 October 2019, the European Commission announced that the EU Member States have reached agreement on a plurilateral treaty for the termination of all ca. 190 intra-EU bilateral investment treaties (BITs). The agreement follows the political Declarations of the Member States issued in January this year in which they explained the consequences they are…

Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) is facing significant opposition in its current form. Whilst some parties are engaged to find new common ground, others have unilaterally implemented measures aimed at ousting investor-state arbitration altogether. Over time, more and more attention has been paid to the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) and its…

The contents of this issue of the journal is now available and includes the following contributions:   Eunice Chua, ‘Enforcement Of International Mediated Settlement Agreements In Asia: A Path Towards Convergence’ In 2014, the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (‘UNCITRAL’) first considered a proposal for the development of a multilateral convention on the…

The ICSID reform bells are ringing. ICSID has long been working on its latest rule amendment project, intent on modernising, simplifying and streamlining the ICSID rules also in light of ongoing criticisms of the investment arbitration system as a whole. From November 11-15, 2019, ICSID held what it hopes to be the final, or at…

In its recent decision T-354/2019, the Colombian Constitutional Court, through one of its chambers, declared that arbitration awards, issued in international arbitrations seated in Colombia, may be subject to constitutional challenges by means of the so-called acción de tutela.1)The acción de tutela is similar to the so-called recurso de amparo, a constitutional injunction widely known…