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This thesis examines the conceptual problems and practical issues that arise if a party commences proceedings under the Brussels I Regulation in another Member State in breach of an agreement that provides for arbitration in England. The focus is on the jurisdiction and powers of the English court when enforcing an arbitration agreement and the limits imposed by the Regulation's regime and underpinning principles regarding the relationship between Member State courts. Thus, the conflict between the English court and the foreign court is on the allocation of competence to decide upon the arbitration agreement's existence, validity and scope and on the jurisdiction of the court seised under the Regulation. The thesis examines this problem against the background of the legal framework that encompasses the international, national and EU level. In addition to this, this thesis is concerned with the role and competence of the arbitral tribunal for the decision on the arbitration agreement. Although the Regulation excludes 'arbitration' from its scope, the issue of the compatibility of the English courts' powers concerning foreign proceedings in breach of an arbitration agreement with the Regulation has recently seen significant development within the European Judicial Area. In particular the decision of the European Court of Justice in West Tankers that found the anti-suit injunction at variance with the Regulation has marked a turning point. This thesis undertakes a critical assessment of the court's reasoning in West Tankers and the repercussions for litigation and arbitration in England in its aftermath, in particular with regard to procedural and substantive alternatives to the anti-suit injunction. In its final part, the thesis addresses the envisaged reform of the Brussels I Regulation with regard to its interface with proceedings where the arbitration agreement is at issue. A critical assessment of the conflicting reform proposals against the background of the competing objectives of the Regulation's regime and international commercial arbitration is undertaken and an argument is made that the divergences in the choice of law rules on the arbitration agreement should be brought back into the spotlight and considered for a comprehensive solution.

Le recours à l'arbitrage par les opérateurs du commerce international a une finalité très importante, qui est celle de l'indemnisation appropriée et efficiente du préjudice. En vue d'évaluer celle-ci, notre étude adopte une recherche juridique détaillée en matière de réparation pour aboutir à un résultat satisfaisant concernant le principe le plus adapté en tant que cadre commun de l'opération d'évaluation de l'indemnisation du préjudice par les arbitres internationaux, en mettant notamment la lumière sur l'arbitrage CIRDI et CCI. À cette fin, il était nécessaire de suivre une analyse juridique tant sur les règles fondamentales que contingentes de l'indemnisation dans le souci d'avoir une perspective entière du processus de l'évaluation du quantum du préjudice. Un passage transversal était ainsi inéluctable sur les règles juridiques relatives à la réparation en droit privé français ainsi qu'en système juridique de Common Law. Au demeurant, un examen sur la codification de ces règles a été suivi dans le cadre des instruments internationaux de droit uniforme. Toutes ces réglementations ont inspiré le droit de l'arbitrage et ont servi comme des sources de celui-ci en matière de la réparation. Ces développements nous ont conduits à percevoir que l'indemnisation doit être adéquate en prenant en compte non seulement les préjudices subis, conformément au principe général de l'indemnisation intégrale, mais aussi tous les intérêts lésés. Sachant que certains préjudices ne sont pas mathématiquement évaluables, une indemnisation arbitraire s'impose dans ce cas. Un nouveau concept d' « indemnisation adéquate» du préjudice pourrait alors dans l'avenir s'imposer dans le droit de l'arbitrage international. / Recourse to arbitration on the part of international business operators has a very important aim, which is the appropriate and efficient indemnisation of prejudice. ln order to evaluate this, our study adopts a detailed legal study of reparations to arrive at a satisfactory result concerning the most appropriate principle to be applied at a common framework as a mode of evaluation of the indemnisation of prejudice in international arbitration, focusing the spotlight on ICC and ICSID arbitration. To this end, it is necessary to follow a legal analysis of bath the fundamental and contingent rules of indemnisation in order to gain a complete perspective on the process of the evaluation of the quantum of prejudice. Thus an inevitably recurring feature throughout the thesis was the legal rules of compensation in French private law in addition to the common law legal system. Furthermore, a review of these rules' codification has been followed in the context of international uniform law instruments. Ali these regulations have inspired the arbitration law and served as its sources in reparation matters. These developments have led us to perceive that compensation must be adequate taking into account not only the damages suffered, in accordance with the general principle of full compensation, but also all the interests affected in the knowledge that certain harms are not mathematically evaluable, entailing the necessity in these cases of an arbitrary compensation. Therefore, a new concept of « adequate compensation » for the damage could impose itself in the future in the law of international arbitration.

De nos jours, les activités et les relations d'affaires sont beaucoup plus larges et complexes qu'auparavant. L'extension de cet espace, nécessite que les différends relatifs aux affaires commerciales soient réglés dans des systèmes efficaces adaptés à la nature des litiges de ce domaine, c'est-à-dire, rapidement, de manière précise et par des experts. C'est pour quoi, au cours des dernières décennies, les législations des pays relatives à l’arbitrage ont été actualisées, et les conventions internationales dans ce domaine connaissent une large réussite. Les pays recherchant à transformer leur législation sur l’arbitrage commercial disposent d’un modèle législatif apprécié et intéressant fourni par la loi type sur l’arbitrage commercial international ; il a été adopté en 1985 par la CNUDCI et constitue aujourd’hui une référence pour réaliser une unité juridique dans le domaine de l’arbitrage commercial international. Les transformations des régimes juridiques nationaux ont débuté assez tôt dans certains des pays développés tels la France, la Suisse et la Belgique, tandis qu’elles ont été entamées assez tardivement dans d’autres pays, tels ceux en voie de développement dont l’Iran. En Iran, l’arbitrage a toujours été admis et pratiqué ; néanmoins, la procédure civile iranienne présentait encore des insuffisances, et dévoila encore davantage de défauts concernant l’arbitrage international. En conséquence, les parties iraniennes aux contrats internationaux ne pouvaient convaincre les parties étrangères à accepter l’Iran en tant que place d’arbitrage. C’est en accord avec les évolutions législatives mondiales que l’Iran aussi, tout en se joignant à la Convention de New York de 1958, réforma sa législation sur l’arbitrage commercial international, en adoptant en 1997 une loi sur l’arbitrage commercial international rédigée en adoptant le modèle législatif proposé par la CNUDCI. Cette loi marqua une évolution marquante dans la législation iranienne vu qu’elle institua d’importantes règles alignées sur les tendances récentes du droit de l’arbitrage international. Malgré cela, certains praticiens y découvrirent des défauts et des lacunes, réclamant ainsi une réforme nécessaire pour rendre le droit iranien réellement attractif. Néanmoins, la loi iranienne de 1997 n’a jamais fait jusqu’à ce jour l’objet d’une étude scientifique systématique. L’examen des droits d'autres pays tels que : la français, la belge et l'anglais sur l’arbitrage commercial international, ainsi que l’étude d’autres sources pertinentes, permettra d’identifier et d’analyser en profondeur les lacunes et de proposer des remèdes. / Nowadays, the business relations are much broader and more complex than before. The extension of this area of activities requires the disputes arising out of business relationships to be resolved through the effective systems aligned with the nature of this area, i.e. the promptness, accuracy and expertise. Hence, over the last few decades, the national laws relating to the arbitration have been developed, and international conventions in this field achieved a great deal of success.The countries seeking to reform their legislation on commercial arbitration can adopt the well-known model law provided by the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration which has been adopted in 1985 by UNCITRAL and is now a reference for the realization of a legal system in the field of international commercial arbitration. Changes in national legal regimes began relatively early in some of the developed countries such as France, Switzerland and Belgium, while they were initiated fairly late in other countries, such as developing world, including Iran.In Iran, arbitration has always been admitted and practiced; nevertheless, the civil procedure in Iran was inadequate in this area, and revealed even more defects concerning international arbitration. Consequently, Iranian parties to international contracts could hardly convince their foreign parties to accept Iran as the seat of arbitration.It was in line with global legislative developments that Iran, while joining the 1958 New York Convention, has reformed its legislation on international commercial arbitration by adopting a law on commercial arbitration in 1997 in accordance with the model law proposed by UNCITRAL. This law marked a significant development in Iranian legislation as it established important rules aligned with recent trends in the law of international arbitration. Despite this, the practitioners discovered some defects and shortcomings. That’s why they call for a reform necessary to make Iranian law truly attractive. Nevertheless, the Iranian law of 1997 has never been subject of a comprehensive study so far. Examination of the laws of other countries such as French, Belgian and English on international commercial arbitration, as well as the study of other relevant sources, will pave the way to identify and analyze in depth the gaps and propose remedies.

La division du monde en États souverains favorise les stratégies des justiciables souhaitant bénéficier d’une législation conforme à leurs aspirations. Ces pratiques sont qualifiées de forum shopping et de law shopping. Les sujets de droit sont alors assimilés à des consommateurs, et le droit est alors réduit à un simple produit « commercialisé » par les différents ordres juridiques. Ces pratiques reposent sur la place grandissante accordée à la personne qui, compte tenu de la mondialisation, devient de plus en plus mobile. Les ordres juridiques nationaux sont alors placés en concurrence et encourent le risque de voir leurs législations les plus impératives évincées. En outre, le marché global de la justice favorise les manoeuvres les plus déloyales.Pour autant, ces pratiques ne font l’objet d’aucune réglementation spécifique. Le droit international privé doit donc trouver les remèdes permettant de contrôler l’exercice du forum shopping et du law shopping pour moraliser le contentieux international et préserver les intérêts étatiques. / The world division into sovereign states encourages persons answerable to the law to usestrategies as they seek to benefit from legislations consistent with their aspirations. These practices are called forum shopping and law shopping. Subjects of law are therefore compared to consumers when the law is reduced to a simple product « marketed » by different national legal orders. These practices take root in the ever growing space the subject of law is given, considering how much mobile they are becoming along with globalization. Consequently,national legal orders are competing against each other with the risk of seeing their most imperative legislation being ousted. Furthermore, world trade of justice fosters the most dishonest maneuvers. Meanwhile, these practices aren’t subjected to any specific regulation. Private international law must find the solutions that would allow control over exercising forum shopping and law shopping in order to reform international litigation and preserve state interests.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is a regional economic community established by Treaty in 1992 and comprising fifteen southern African countries. The Tribunal, SADC’s judicial organ, is situated in Windhoek, Namibia and became operational in 2005. The Tribunal enjoys a wide mandate to hear and determine disputes between states, states and SADC, and between natural and legal persons and states or SADC. It is mandated to develop its own jurisprudence having regard to applicable treaties, general rules and principles of public international law, and principles and rules of law of member states. Being new in the field, the Tribunal has not as yet developed a significant jurisprudence although it has delivered a number of judgments some of which are referred to in the study. The Tribunal is expected to develop its own jurisprudence having regard to the jurisprudence developed by other international courts involved in the judicial settlement of disputes. The study offers a comparative review and analysis of the jurisprudence of two selected courts: the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ). The focus is on four selected areas considered crucial to the functioning of the Tribunal and the selected courts. The study discusses the parties with access to the Tribunal and compares this with access to the ICJ and ECJ. The jurisdiction of the Tribunal is contrasted with that of the two selected courts. The sources of law available to the Tribunal are discussed and contrasted to those of the two courts. Lastly, the enforcement of law in SADC is contrasted to what applies in relation to the selected courts. In each selected area, similarities and differences between the Tribunal and the two courts are noted and critically evaluated. Further, rules and principles developed by the two selected courts are explored in depth with a view to identifying those which could be of use to the Tribunal. Recommendations are made on rules and principles which could be of use to the Tribunal and on possible improvements to the SADC treaty regime. / Constitutional, International and Indigenous Law / LL.D.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is a regional economic community established by Treaty in 1992 and comprising fifteen southern African countries. The Tribunal, SADC’s judicial organ, is situated in Windhoek, Namibia and became operational in 2005. The Tribunal enjoys a wide mandate to hear and determine disputes between states, states and SADC, and between natural and legal persons and states or SADC. It is mandated to develop its own jurisprudence having regard to applicable treaties, general rules and principles of public international law, and principles and rules of law of member states. Being new in the field, the Tribunal has not as yet developed a significant jurisprudence although it has delivered a number of judgments some of which are referred to in the study. The Tribunal is expected to develop its own jurisprudence having regard to the jurisprudence developed by other international courts involved in the judicial settlement of disputes. The study offers a comparative review and analysis of the jurisprudence of two selected courts: the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ). The focus is on four selected areas considered crucial to the functioning of the Tribunal and the selected courts. The study discusses the parties with access to the Tribunal and compares this with access to the ICJ and ECJ. The jurisdiction of the Tribunal is contrasted with that of the two selected courts. The sources of law available to the Tribunal are discussed and contrasted to those of the two courts. Lastly, the enforcement of law in SADC is contrasted to what applies in relation to the selected courts. In each selected area, similarities and differences between the Tribunal and the two courts are noted and critically evaluated. Further, rules and principles developed by the two selected courts are explored in depth with a view to identifying those which could be of use to the Tribunal. Recommendations are made on rules and principles which could be of use to the Tribunal and on possible improvements to the SADC treaty regime. / Constitutional, International and Indigenous Law / LL.D.