The dispute resolution landscape in Japan is almost unrecognisable from the position 20 years ago.  In that time, Japan has evolved into a significant market for cross-border contentious legal matters.  Sophisticated Japanese corporations with significant overseas business are comfortable using international arbitration and mediation as methods of dispute resolution. 86% of the case load of…

After a gala evening at the National Museum of Scotland filled with Scottish gastronomy and ceilidh dancing, delegates returned to the conference centre for the last day of the ICCA Congress. Renaissance Arbitrator This panel asked: “what can lawyers and arbitrators learn from disciplines outside the law and arbitration?”. That question is particularly timely as…

The second day of the ICCA Congress took place on Tuesday, September 20. Delegates gathered in the morning for the presentation of the inaugural ICCA Guillermo Aguilar-Alvarez Memorial Prize, established in honour of former ICCA Governing Board Member Guillermo Aguilar-Alvarez. Professor Stefano Azzali said a few words on the life and career of Guillermo, fondly…

The first full day of the ICCA Congress took place on Monday, September 19. Delegates gathered early in the morning for a keynote speech by Louise Arbour, former Canadian diplomat, Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, High Commissioner for Refugees, Chief Prosecutor for the Yugoslavia and Rwanda Tribunals and current Senior Counsel at BLG….

After a long, pandemic-induced delay, the ICCA Congress in Edinburgh is now in full swing.  Six and a half long years after winning the bid to host the XXVth ICCA Congress, I had almost forgotten why we, the Scottish Arbitration Centre, had made the bid in the first place, but as the international arbitration community…

The 2022 ICCA Congress kicks off today in Edinburgh. Together with our Host Committee, the Scottish Arbitration Centre, and my Congress co-chair and immediate past ICCA President Gabrielle Kaufmann-Kohler, it is an honor to declare the XXVth ICCA Congress officially open! Arbitration’s Age of Enlightenment? The XXVth ICCA Congress has been seven years in the…

The Editorial Board of Kluwer Arbitration Blog announces the opening of the following position with Kluwer Arbitration Blog: Assistant Editor for Investment Arbitration.  The Assistant Editor reports directly to the coordinating Associate Editor and is expected to (1) suggest, solicit, edit and review submissions related to investment arbitration for posting on the Blog, including by proactively identifying…

Lord Chief Justice Hon. Michael H. Whitten KC has been the Lord Chief Justice of the Kingdom of Tonga since 2 September 2019. After gaining early broad experience in various areas of law, Chief Justice Whitten was called to the Queensland Bar in 1990 before moving to Victoria where he practised for more than 20…

As set out in our last blog post on evidentiary issues in international arbitrations, the treatment of evidence within the field of international arbitration is oftentimes inconsistent and even unpredictable from one arbitral tribunal to another, a divide which becomes even more pronounced when considering the different approaches that may be adopted due to a…

On 21 April 2022, the Dubai Court of Cassation (the “Cassation Court”) issued a judgment in respect of an application for the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitration award in case no. 109 of 2022 (the “Judgment”, available in Arabic-only on the Court’s website). In the Judgment, the Cassation Court considered whether an arbitration award…

Looking for a fun night out with your arbitration friends now that the holidays are over? Then you will be happy to learn that International Arbitration finally has a game show!  It will be held in Edinburgh on Monday, 19 September 2022. Join our live version of the Kluwer Arbitration Blog Quiz! in Edinburgh, at…

To a large extent, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (“UNCLOS”) shields the contractual rights of deep seabed miners from the regulatory powers yielded by the International Seabed Authority (“ISA”). Exploration and exploitation contracts concluded between the ISA and deep seabed mining operators are afforded security of tenure: their unilateral suspension or…

In many Arab countries, including Jordan, special legislative and regulatory instruments are in place to provide certain protections for local commercial agents and distributors. The relevant laws regularly vest the local courts with exclusive jurisdiction to rule on disputes between agents/distributors and principals. Such exclusive jurisdiction rules prevent derogation from the jurisdiction of local state courts…

The Editorial Board of Kluwer Arbitration Blog announces the opening of the following position with Kluwer Arbitration Blog: Assistant Editor for East and Central Asia. The Assistant Editor reports directly to the coordinating Associate Editor and is expected to (1) collect, edit and review guest submissions from the designated region for posting on the Blog, while actively…

In June of this year, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a unanimous opinion (ZF Automotive US, Inc. v. Luxshare, Ltd., available here) settling a circuit-split regarding the interpretation of 28 U.S.C. § 1782. The provision grants U.S. federal courts the authority to compel testimony or the production of documents to aid “foreign…

We are happy to report that the latest issue of the ASA Bulletin is now available and includes the following articles and cases; we also add a brief glimpse of the articles of the next issue:   ARTICLES Felix DASSER, Choosing a Seat? Ten Questions to Ask (on Setting-Aside Proceedings) In his message, ASA President…

There’s a story told of Abraham Lincoln who, during his days as a working lawyer, was riding in a stagecoach from one rural courthouse to another. His companions got to discussing human anatomy, and one of them asked Lincoln, a distinctly tall man himself, how long he thought a man’s legs should be. Long enough,…

A little over a decade has passed since the introduction of the Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration in Australia as the framework for uniform domestic arbitration legislation. Before this, the various enactments of domestic legislation in the Australian states and territories had followed English Acts. For example, the New South Wales 1902 Arbitration Act…

After the October 2021’s plebiscite, Chile began the process of drafting a new constitution, which was entrusted to a “Convención Constituyente“. After a year of work, on July 4, 2022, the final proposal was delivered to the President of the Republic.  The proposed constitution will be submitted to a ratifying plebiscite in September of this…

For a judge to know the law may seem as obviously desirable as for a cook to know something of food. What goes for judges ought here to go for arbitrators. After all, overwhelmingly, parties choose lawyers as arbitrators in preference to industry or financial experts, for example. Yet say it in Latin and you…

The 1996 Brazilian Arbitration Act (the “BAA”), which subjects domestic and international arbitrations to the same set of rules, has been modified only once through the 2015 amendment (the “2015 Amendment”). On July 6, 2022, Brazilian party leaders signed a Motion of Urgency to bypass the standard legislative process – which usually comprises public consultations…

The Institute of Transnational Arbitration (ITA), in collaboration with the ITA Board of Reporters, is happy to inform you that the latest ITA Arbitration Report was published: a free email subscription service available at KluwerArbitration.com delivering timely reports on awards, cases, legislation and current developments from over 60 countries and 12 institutions. To get your free subscription to the ITA…

Uzbekistan has updated certain legislative acts in connection with the recent adoption of the Law “On International Commercial Arbitration” (No. O’RQ-674) in 2021 (as previously covered in this blog). On May 16, 2022, the President of Uzbekistan signed a new law “On amendments and additions to certain legislative acts of the Republic of Uzbekistan in…

In 2017, the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) initiated a consultative process to consider procedural reform options for investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS). Kluwer Arbitration Blog ran a series on UNCITRAL’s reform work in 2020, highlighting several subjects under consideration by Working Group III (WGIII). To get first-hand insights into the current status…