International arbitration has become the favored method of resolving disputes between business partners in almost every aspect of international trade, commerce, and investment. The resolution of a dispute by means of international arbitration provides the parties with an opportunity to resolve their disputes in a private, confidential, cost and time efficient manner before a neutral tribunal of their choice. However, challenges to arbitral jurisdiction have become a common practice in the field. Resolution of such challenges may significantly delay the resolution of the parties’ primary substantive dispute, increase overall dispute resolution costs and even whittle down the benefits of the parties’ bargain to arbitrate. Accordingly, adopting a proper approach to the resolution of such disputes becomes crucial to the efficacy of international arbitration as a system of dispute resolution. The present book provides a comparative analysis of the practice of three carefully selected legal orders: the English, German and Swiss and outlines possible ways forward. As the work strikes a balance between theory and practice, it will appeal to practitioners, researchers, but also students looking to develop their understanding of the international arbitration field.

The ultimate question that runs through all of our law of arbitration is the allocation of responsibility between state courts and arbitral tribunals : If private tribunals assume the power to bind others in a definitive fashion, we must ask, where does this authority come from ? Fundamentally different in this respect from a state judge, a private arbitrator may only derive his legitimacy from that exercise of private ordering and self-government which characterizes any voluntary commercial transaction. This work begins then with the dimensions of that “consent” which alone can justify arbitral jurisdiction. The discussion is then carried forward to explore how party autonomy in the contracting process may be expanded, giving rise to the voluntary reallocation of authority between courts and arbitrators. It concludes with the necessary inquiry into the autonomy with respect to the “chosen law” that will govern the agreement to arbitrate itself.

Although international arbitration has emerged as a credible means of resolution of transnational disputes involving parties from diverse cultures, the effects of culture on the accuracy, efficiency, fairness, and legitimacy of international arbitration is a surprisingly neglected topic within the existing literature. The Culture of International Arbitration fills that gap by providing an in-depth study of the role of culture in modern day arbitral proceedings. It contains a detailed analysis of how cultural miscommunication affects the accuracy, efficiency, fairness, and legitimacy in both commercial and investment arbitration when the arbitrators and the parties, their counsel and witnesses come from diverse legal traditions and cultures. The book provides a comprehensive definition of culture, and methodically documents and examines the epistemology of determining facts in various legal traditions and how the mixing of traditions influences the outcome. By so doing, the book demonstrates the acute need for increasing cultural diversity among arbitrators and counsel while securing appropriate levels of cultural competence. To provide an accurate picture, Kidane conducted interviews with leading international jurists from diverse legal traditions with first-hand experience of the complicating effects of culture in legal proceedings. Given the insights and information on the rules and expectations of the various legal traditions and their convergence in modern day international arbitration practice, this book challenges assumptions and can offer a unique and useful perspective to all practitioners, academics, policy makers, students of international arbitration.

This book is the first-ever to explore commercial arbitration in the Ethiopian context. Alternative conflict resolution mechanisms are nothing new to the country: arbitration as a dispute settlement mechanism by which a third party issues a binding decision on a dispute between two or more parties by exercising the jurisdictional mandate conferred on it by the parties themselves was established with the adoption of the Civil Code in 1960. This pioneering book evaluates the extent to which Ethiopia’s laws and institutions allow disputing parties to effectively reap the benefits of international commercial arbitration. It interprets the relevant legislation and attempts to bridge the gaps in it, in order to help lawyers, arbitrators, arbitral institutions, academics and judges to understand and apply it. It also helps parties seeking to complete international transactions pertaining to Ethiopia make the right choice regarding conflict resolution.

The Compendium, like an encyclopedia, contains entries for most of the foundational principles and concepts underlying arbitration. Each entry takes a holistic view of international arbitration, as they tackle core concepts from both a commercial and an investment arbitration perspective, focusing on the fundamental issues underlying the various topics rather than on the solutions adopted in any particular jurisdiction, thus making the Compendium a truly cross-border, transnational resource. This innovative approach will allow readers to identify the commonalities as well as the differences between commercial and investment arbitration, whether and where cross-fertilization has taken place and what consequences it can have. This approach allows the Compendium to be a tool in promoting the creation of a culture of international arbitration that considers commercial arbitration and investment arbitration as part of a whole but with certain distinct features particular to each.

Although negotiation still lies at the heart of international commercial agreements, much of the detail has migrated to the Internet and has become part of electronic commerce. This incomparable one-volume work??now in its sixth edition??with its deeply informed emphasis on both the face-to-face and electronic components of setting up and performing an international commercial agreement, stands alone among contract drafting guides and has proven its enduring worth. Following its established highly practical format, the book’s much-appreciated precise information on a wide variety of issues??including those pertaining to intellectual property, alternative dispute resolution, and regional differences??is of course still here in this new edition. There is new and updated material on such matters as the following: • the need for contract drafters to understand and to use the concepts of “standardization” (i.e., the work of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as a contract drafting tool); • new developments and technical progress in e-commerce; • new developments in artificial intelligence in contract drafting; • the possible use of electronic currencies such as Bitcoin as a payment device; • foreign direct investment; • special considerations inherent in drafting licensing agreements; • online dispute resolution including the innovations referred to as the “robot” arbitrator; • changes in the arbitration rules of major international organizations; and • assessment of possible future trends in international commercial arrangements. Each chapter provides numerous references to additional sources, including a large number of websites. Materials from and citations to appropriate literature in languages other than English are also included. In its recognition that a business executive entering into an international commercial transaction is mainly interested in drafting an agreement that satisfies all of the parties and that will be performed as promised, this superb guide will immeasurably assist any lawyer or business executive to plan and carry out individual transactions even when that person is not interested in a full-blown understanding of the entire landscape of international contracts. Business executives who are not lawyers will find that this book gives them the understanding and perspective necessary to work effectively with the legal experts.

Arbitration is a method of dispute resolution in which parties agree to submit their dispute to a private, neutral third person, instead of a traditional court with a judge and jury. This private system of arbitration, which is often confidential and secretive, can be a polar opposite, in almost every way, to the public court system. Over the past few decades, arbitration agreements have proliferated throughout American society. Such agreements appear in virtually all types of consumer transactions, and millions of American workers are bound by arbitration agreements in their employment relationships. America has become an "arbitration nation," with an increasing number of disputes taken away from the traditional, open court system and relegated to a private, secretive system of justice. How did arbitration agreements become so widespread, and enforceable, in American society? Prior to the 1920s, courts generally refused to enforce such agreements, and parties had the right to bring their disputes to court. However, during the 1920s, Congress and state legislatures suddenly enacted ground-breaking laws declaring that arbitration agreements are "valid, irrevocable, and enforceable." Drawing on previously untapped archival sources, this book explores the many different people, institutions, forces, beliefs, and events that led to the enactment of modern arbitration laws during the 1920s, and this book examines why America's arbitration laws radically changed during this period. By examining this history, this book demonstrates how the U.S. Supreme Court has grossly misconstrued these laws and unjustifiably created an expansive, informal, private system of justice touching almost every aspect of American society and impacting the lives of millions. Professor Szalai maintains a blog on arbitration at outsourcingjustice.com. "Recommended. General readers, upper-division undergraduate students, and above." -- CHOICE Magazine

The School of International Arbitration of the Centre for Commercial Law Studies at Queen Mary University of London celebrated its 30th anniversary in April 2015 with a major conference featuring presentations by 35 international arbitration practitioners and scholars from many countries representing a variety of legal systems. This volume has emerged from that conference. What is striking is not only the range and diversity of the topics examined but also the emergence of new subjects for examination, demonstrating that arbitration law and practice do not stand still but are constantly evolving. The issues and topics covered include the following: - Evolution of case law and practice in international arbitration; - The concept and autonomy of arbitral award; - Parties in international arbitration; - Parallel proceedings in international arbitration; - Court review of arbitration awards; - Geographic expansion of international arbitration; - Counsel regulation and conflicts disclosures; - The use of technology in international arbitration; - Teaching and research in international arbitration. This superbly organised and edited volume, like earlier conference volumes from the School of International Arbitration, is sure to be welcomed and acclaimed, and like them will prove of lasting value.

The Research Handbook on Intellectual Property Rights and Arbitration explores the complementary relationship between state court adjudication and arbitral proceedings in the context of intellectual property rights. Presenting contemporary research and insight into the scholarly debates on the topic, it provides a comprehensive overview of arbitrating intellectual property disputes on an international scale.

It often seems today that no dispute is barred from resolution by arbitration. Even the fundamental question of whether a dispute falls under the exclusive jurisdiction of a judicial body may itself be arbitrable. Arbitrability is thus an elusive concept; yet a systematic study of it, as this book shows, yields innumerable guidelines and insights that are of substantial value to arbitral practice. Although the book takes the form of a collection of essays, it is designed as a comprehensive commentary on practical issues that emerge from the idea of arbitrability. Fifteen leading academics and practitioners from Europe and the United States each explore different facets of arbitrability always with a perspective open to international developments and comparative evaluation of standards. The presentation falls into two parts: in the first the focus is on the general features of arbitrability, its rationale and the laws applicable to it. In the second, arbitrability is specifically examined in the context of administrative, criminal, corporate, IP, financial, commercial, and criminal law This book has its origins in an International Conference on Arbitrability held at Athens in September 2005. Seven papers presented there are here reviewed and updated, and nine others are added. The subject of the book and– arbitrability and– is one that is much talked about, but seldom if ever given the in-depth treatment presented here. Arbitrators and other practitioners in the field will welcome the way the analysis moves logically from theory to practice regarding every issue, and academics will recognize a definitive treatment of arbitrability as understood and applied in the settlement of disputes today.