Rethinking the Role of African National Courts in Arbitration

Rethinking the Role of African National Courts in Arbitration
Author: Emilia Onyema
Publisher: Kluwer Law International B.V.
Total Pages: 493
Release: 2018-06-07
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9041190430

With the increase in commercial transactions within the fifty-four independent African states and at the international level, it has become apparent that most of the legal framework for arbitration across the continent require reform. Accordingly, in recent years, as this first in-depth treatment of arbitration in Africa shows, jurisprudence from national courts of various African jurisdictions demonstrates that the courts are becoming more pro-arbitration and judges increasingly better understand that their role is to support or complement the arbitral process. This book documents the second SOAS Arbitration in Africa conference held in Lagos in June 2016. In thirteen lucid chapters, African practitioners and academics and European specialists in African legal and arbitral systems provide a remarkably thorough overview of the relation of courts and arbitration in the continent. Among the matters that arise for discussion are the: • disposition of courts in Africa towards arbitration, whether supportive or interventionist; • involvement of courts in the arbitral process before, during, and after an award has been rendered; • publication and access to arbitration-related decisions from African courts; • enforcement of annulled awards in African states under the New York Convention; • prospects for the establishment of a pan-African investment court; and • how foreign courts (particularly in the United States, France, and Switzerland) perceive African arbitration. Because of the wide range of developmental stages among Africa’s numerous court and legal systems, Part I of the book explores generic issues relevant to courts and arbitration, followed by detailed descriptions, including court decisions, of the situation in eight specific jurisdictions – Egypt, South Africa, Sudan, Mauritius, Nigeria, Ghana, Rwanda, and Kenya. The authors of these latter chapters are legal practitioners and academics from each of these countries. Throughout this book, policy recommendations for improving access to court decisions and laws in African states are brought to the fore. In its expertise-based advocacy for a mutually harmonious and supportive co-existence for arbitration and litigation in the context of the complexities and peculiarities of African states – and its confrontation of the predominantly negative perception that often leads to ‘arbitration flight’ from the continent – this book helps companies, investors, and their advisors to base their decisions on facts and not perceptions. It will be of great value to practising lawyers in arbitration as counsel or arbitrators, companies doing transnational business, global law firms, government officials, and academics in the field.

Yearbook Commercial Arbitration, Volume XLIII – 2018

Yearbook Commercial Arbitration, Volume XLIII – 2018
Author: STEPHAN W. SCHILL
Publisher: Kluwer Law International B.V.
Total Pages: 788
Release: 2018-12-21
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9403508809

The Yearbook Commercial Arbitration continues its longstanding commitment to serving as a primary resource for the international arbitration community with reporting on arbitral awards and court decisions applying the leading arbitration conventions, as well as on arbitration legislation and rules. Volume XLIII (2018) includes: • excerpts of arbitral awards made under the auspices of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and the Milan Chamber of Arbitration (CAM); • notes on new and amended arbitration rules, including references to their online publication; • notes on recent developments in arbitration law and practice in Argentina, Canada, Cape Verde, PR China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Hungary, Jamaica, Malaysia, Mexico, South Africa, Sudan, United Arab Emirates and Uruguay; • excerpts of 91 court decisions applying the 1958 New York Convention from 21 countries – including, for the first time, a case from the Marshall Islands – all indexed by subject matter and linked to the commentaries on the New York Convention published in the Yearbook, authored by former General Editor and leading expert Prof. Albert Jan van den Berg; • excerpts from other court decisions of interest to the practice of international arbitration; • an extensive Bibliography of recent books and journals on arbitration. The Yearbook is edited by the International Council for Commercial Arbitration (ICCA), the world's leading organization representing practitioners and academics in the field, with the assistance of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, The Hague. It is an essential tool for lawyers, business people and scholars involved in the practice and study of international arbitration.

Arbitration in Africa

Arbitration in Africa
Author: Lise Bosman
Publisher: Kluwer Law International B.V.
Total Pages: 693
Release: 2021-09-02
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9403537612

The Second Edition of this unprecedented volume assembles an updated and expanded country-by-country analysis – both practical and insightful – of how arbitration is conducted in forty-nine African countries, providing essential information about legislative provisions, treaty adherence, and arbitral procedure. Contributors include sought-after African arbitrators, distinguished practitioners, academics and institution-builders, all of whom are active in promoting the use of arbitration as a viable means of dispute resolution in Africa. Five sections representing the main regions of the continent, each with a substantive introductory chapter covering the major trends within that region, offer country overviews addressing issues such as the following: adherence to the key arbitration conventions; modernity of a State’s arbitration legislation and its compatibility with the UNCITRAL Model Law; particular features of arbitral practice in that jurisdiction (including responses to the COVID-19 pandemic); access to and (where available) statistics from local and regional arbitral institutions; significant arbitration-related national case law; and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. A sixth section focuses on treaty-based investor-State arbitration against African States under the ICSID Convention, providing an empirical analysis of the experience and record of African States with investor-State arbitration in the period between 2010 and 2020. Useful tables and graphics of intra-African bilateral investment treaties, a list of ICSID proceedings involving African States, a list of treaty accession by African States, and other tabular features round out the volume. The first edition of this volume was welcomed by arbitration practitioners and legal academics everywhere as an essential guide to an emerging and important area of international arbitration practice. This second edition tracks the significant developments (in treaty accession, reform of arbitration legislation and developing case law) that have taken place over the past decade, and confirms that arbitration as a preferred method of dispute resolution is now firmly entrenched on the African continent.

The Regulation of International Commercial Arbitration

The Regulation of International Commercial Arbitration
Author: João Ilhão Moreira
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2024-07-25
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1509962719

This book addresses how the regulation of international commercial arbitrators takes place. International commercial arbitrators are a unique category of service providers because they are not organised as other professionals such as accountants, lawyers and doctors. The book provides an overview of how and why the regulation of international commercial arbitrators diverged from that of other professions. It also argues that, despite these differences, there is an effective regulatory environment overseeing the behaviour of international commercial arbitrators. The book unpicks the different elements that contribute to the creation and enforcement of professional norms in this field. It explains how the specific characteristics of the arbitral market create strong incentives for ethical norms to be created, even in the absence of the institutions that usually address these issues in other fields. It also describes how market and social forces drive arbitrators to comply with these norms in most circumstances. Finally, the book addresses the ways in which this regulatory system also explains some of the perceived weaknesses of arbitration, namely the rising costs of proceedings and the perceived unfairness of appointments.

Comparative Dispute Resolution

Comparative Dispute Resolution
Author: Maria F. Moscati
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 608
Release: 2020-12-25
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1786433036

Comparative Dispute Resolution offers an original, wide-ranging, and invaluable corpus of chapters on dispute resolution. Enriched by a broad, comparative vision and a focus on the processes used to handle disputes, this study adds significantly to the discourse around comparative legal studies. Chapters present new understandings of theoretical, comparative and transnational dimensions of the manner in which societies and their legal systems respond to difficulties in social relations.

Transnational Actors in International Investment Law

Transnational Actors in International Investment Law
Author: Anastasios Gourgourinis
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 199
Release: 2021-01-22
Genre: Law
ISBN: 3030606791

This book reviews for the first time some of the less frequently addressed actors in international investment law. Traditional studies concerning actors in international investment law have tended to focus on arbitrators, claimant investors and respondent states. This book explores transnational actors, such as UNCITRAL, the EU, international standardizing bodies, domestic and international courts and tribunals, etc., shedding light on their transnational activity and pluralistic role in international investment law.

The Plurality and Synergies of Legal Traditions in International Arbitration

The Plurality and Synergies of Legal Traditions in International Arbitration
Author: Nayla Comair Obeid
Publisher: Kluwer Law International B.V.
Total Pages: 560
Release: 2024-02-20
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9403529113

The cultural diversity characterizing international arbitration today is as much a source of enrichment as it is sometimes a source of practical difficulties affecting both the arbitration procedure and the application of substantive law. Consequently, it is becoming clearer that the critical project for international arbitration in the immediate future will be how to best answer the fundamental question of cultural pluralism. This book presents an informative and well-argued discussion on many aspects of international arbitration, clarifying the main procedural and substantive similarities and differences between different legal systems around the world, focusing not only on common and civil law traditions but also the role played by regional legal traditions including Islamic law and African perspectives. With contributions from fifty arbitrators, counsel, and academics representing every region of the world where international arbitration has secured a foothold, the volume consolidates and synthesizes a series of discussions sponsored by the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators that took place in Dubai, Johannesburg, and Paris in 2017. The essays identify and address the cultural distinctions that affect the key ever-present factors which have forged the character of modern international arbitration, such as the following: the seat of the arbitration and the legal regime to which the arbitration is attached; due process, which has different and specific meanings in different national legal systems; international standards such as international public policy, illegality, arbitrability, and sanctions; the immunity of international arbitrators; form of presentation of evidence, production of documents, oral and written submissions, and expert evidence; the specific context of international investment arbitration; disputes in specific industries or legal areas (telecommunications, construction, mining, intellectual property); the role of national judges and the legal traditions they embrace throughout and after arbitration proceedings; how to incorporate more conciliatory cultural traditions, which are notably shared in many African and Asian countries; and training and opportunities for the next generation in international arbitration. The book is replete with tools and recommendations to ensure synergy and harmony between the different legal traditions that coexist in today’s arbitral proceedings. All users of arbitration, whether the arbitrators themselves, lawyers involved as counsel for parties, or judges applying arbitration law, will greatly appreciate this matchless elucidation of the different systems and alternative ways of presenting the divergent procedures and ways of conducting international arbitrations. The book’s immeasurable value to arbitration academics goes without saying.

Private International Law in BRICS

Private International Law in BRICS
Author: Stellina Jolly
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 827
Release: 2024-08-08
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1509966153

This book examines the convergences, divergences and reciprocal lessons that the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) share with one another in developing the principles of private international law. The chapters provide a thematic understanding of the cornerstones of private international law in each of the BRICS countries: namely, (1) the procedure to initiate claims in civil and commercial matters, (2) the law that would govern such matters in litigation and arbitration, as well as (3) the mechanism to recognise and enforce foreign judgments and arbitral awards. Written by leading private international law scholars and practitioners, the chapters draw on domestic legislation and its interpretation through cases decided by the courts in each of these emerging economies, and explicitly cover the rules applicable in contractual and non-contractual concerns and issues of choice of court agreements. Issues around marriage, divorce, matrimonial property, succession and surrogacy are also addressed, considering the implication of such aspects through the increased movement of persons. The book is a useful comparative resource for the governments of the BRICS countries, legislators, traders, academics, researchers and students looking for an in-depth discussion of the reciprocal lessons that these countries may have to offer one another on these issues.

Ethics in International Arbitration

Ethics in International Arbitration
Author: Catherine A. Rogers
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2014
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9780198713203

International arbitration is a remarkably resilient institution, but many unresolved and largely unacknowledged ethical quandaries lurk below the surface. Globalization of commercial trade has increased the number and diversity of parties, counsel, experts and arbitrators, which has in turn lead to more frequent ethical conflicts just as procedures have become more formal and transparent. The predictable result is that ethical transgressions are increasingly evident and less tolerable. Despite these developments, regulation of various actors in the system arbitrators, lawyers, experts, third-party funders and arbitral institutions remains ambiguous and often ineffectual. Ethics in International Arbitration systematically analyses the causes and effects of these developments as they relate to the professional conduct of arbitrators, counsel, experts, and third-party funders in international commercial and investment arbitration. This work proposes a model for effective ethical self-regulation, meaning regulation of professional conduct at an international level and within existing arbitral procedures and structures. The work draws on historical developments and current trends to propose analytical frameworks for addressing existing problems and reifying the legitimacy of international arbitration into the future.