When South Africa emerged from the era of isolation in 1994, it was faced with the fact that many of its laws relevant in the field of international trade and investment were outdated and inadequate. An obvious example is in the field of international arbitration. The problem is a serious one. Even thought South Africa is a developing country (one of the richest countries in Africa) and provides everything an investor wants: mainly, a reliable political and juridical system and some great opportunities of business, the same investor is also interested in how a dispute arisen between parties is settled. In this matter / one can be surprised not to see any references to international arbitration in the South African regulations.<br /> <br /> South African passed the Arbitration Act 42 of 1965 that was based mostly on the English Arbitration Act of 1950. Unfortunately, this law was designed for domestic arbitration and has no provision at all dealing with international arbitrations. This Act is perceived by those involved in international arbitration as being totally inadequate for this purpose.<br /> <br /> Given the fact that countries like Nigeria, Kenya or Zimbabwe have regulations on international arbitration prove the interests of States to give the best conditions for investors (e.g. predictability of where and how a dispute will be settled if one occurs).<br /> Focus will be on private arbitration (two private entities such as persons or corporations) and investor/state arbitration and will therefore not be on the Dispute Settlement Body of the WTO which settles disputes between states. Besides, the domestic arbitration regime will be put aside to concentrate on International Arbitration.

When South Africa emerged from the era of isolation in 1994, it was faced with the fact that many of its laws relevant in the field of international trade and investment were outdated and inadequate. An obvious example is in the field of international arbitration. The problem is a serious one. Even thought South Africa is a developing country (one of the richest countries in Africa) and provides everything an investor wants: mainly, a reliable political and juridical system and some great opportunities of business, the same investor is also interested in how a dispute arisen between parties is settled. In this matter / one can be surprised not to see any references to international arbitration in the South African regulations.<br /> <br /> South African passed the Arbitration Act 42 of 1965 that was based mostly on the English Arbitration Act of 1950. Unfortunately, this law was designed for domestic arbitration and has no provision at all dealing with international arbitrations. This Act is perceived by those involved in international arbitration as being totally inadequate for this purpose.<br /> <br /> Given the fact that countries like Nigeria, Kenya or Zimbabwe have regulations on international arbitration prove the interests of States to give the best conditions for investors (e.g. predictability of where and how a dispute will be settled if one occurs).<br /> Focus will be on private arbitration (two private entities such as persons or corporations) and investor/state arbitration and will therefore not be on the Dispute Settlement Body of the WTO which settles disputes between states. Besides, the domestic arbitration regime will be put aside to concentrate on International Arbitration.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Pennsylvania, 1934. / Bibliography: p. 137-144.

Thesis (M.A.)--City University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on July 18, 2007) MAARB dissertation, Year 2006. Course no.: LW6409. Includes bibliographical references.

Arbitrations involving states and foreign private parties are a complex phenomenon, sharing certain animating values with other forms of adjudication, particularly international arbitrations of private commercial disputes, but reflecting at the same time singular values that must be fostered if the institution is to play a beneficial role in the international community. A study of institutional forms of arbitration designed primarily to resolve commercial disputes between private parties reveals that their emphasis upon stability and upon the certainty and predictability of rules can make such institutions inappropriate for the arbitration of disputes involving states. Regimes designed specifically to regulate arbitrations between states and foreign private entities may be more successful in displaying sensitivity to the needs and aspirations of both public and private parties, but the work of the largest specialised institution, the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, is hampered by its governing Treaty for it does not deal adequately with the enforcement of awards against states. Ad hoc arbitration continues to be a useful means of resolving commercial disputes between states and foreign private parties, especially because the parties are free to design or to choose a delocalised procedural law which need not hinder enforcement. The great difficulty with all forms of arbitration between states and private entities is the substantive law to be applied by such tribunals. Under the principle of the autonomy of the will, the parties are free to choose the governing law, and they may select international law. If they do so, however, the choice does not imply that the foreign private party is assimilated to a state or that the international responsibility of the state party is engaged directly vis-a-vis the private party. The enforcement of arbitral awards is also a troubling problem, but recent municipal case law reveals a growing pro-enforcement bias. Nevertheless, the experience of the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal reveals the significant advantages that accrue to the parties if they agree in advance upon an independent enforcement mechanism. The political tensions inherent in most "mixed" arbitrations demand flexibility in the application of procedural and substantive rules, and require an approach to dispute resolution that emphasises the value of compromise. As such, the awards that emerge from mixed arbitrations are likely to be idiosyncratic or, at the very least, vague. Nevertheless, if one stresses the importance of process values rather than the elaboration of substantive rules, arbitration between states and foreign private parties can play an important role in the enhancement of the international rule of law.

Inaug.--diss.--Würzburg. / "Literatur": p. 107-110.

Thesis (doctoral)--Friedrich-Alexanders-Universität Erlangen, 1914. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [10-12.]).

Thesis--Geneva. / Includes bibliographical references.

Arbitrating of competition law claims has generated a substantial tension between the policies served by promoting international arbitration and those protected by the national competition law. Despite the legal tension and unpredictability associated with arbitrating competition law issues, the arbitrator should, in principle, resolve such issues. This study analyses the main concerns when arbitrating competition law issues, such as jurisdiction, choice of law and, in particular, the position of national jurisdiction regarding the enforcement of the award conflicting national competition law. / This study proposes the functional approach to choice of law problems according to which the arbitrator will decide on the applicable competition law bearing in mind the content of mandatory norm, its connection with a dispute and the consequences of its application and non-application. In that regard, this thesis will examine how an arbitrator should address the extraterritorial effect of the competition law. The study will suggest that if the competition law policies of states connected with a dispute serve opposing and conflicting goals, the arbitrator should, in order to preserve his/her neutral function refuse to decide whose competition policy is "better" and should consequently decline jurisdiction.

This thesis addresses the question of how conventions and other instruments regulating court jurisdiction should deal with court proceedings relating to arbitration. It argues that the conventional approach of excluding court proceedings related to arbitration entirely from the scope of the jurisdiction instrument cannot be justified with reference to any international arbitration convention. It continues to argue that the exclusion of arbitration causes or exacerbates significant problems at the interface between the courts and arbitration, taking the European Union’s recent experience as an example. It then argues that the European legislature has recently directly considered the exclusion of arbitration from its jurisdictional instruments and failed to act effectively. Any amendments to this system will necessarily be offered within the relevant legal context, so an assessment of the prevailing principles in European international private law and international commercial arbitration will follow. Furthermore, the ongoing debate surrounding the delocalisation of arbitration and its relevance to the debate about the interface between court jurisdiction and arbitration shall be addressed. Finally, this thesis proposes a model for inclusion of arbitration in the European jurisdiction instrument (the Brussels I Regulation) that would, it is argued, solve or ameliorate the problems at the interface between the Regulation and arbitration, whilst broadly aligning with the prevailing principles in the relevant legal context. The thesis then considers whether this approach could be extended beyond Europe to the world at large, concluding that it could not. This work therefore takes an original approach to a topic of much contemporary controversy, by taking a holistic, rounded, and reasoned view of the problems at the interface between court jurisdiction and arbitration. It also contains original insights into several other areas, including the historical justification for the exclusion of arbitration from jurisdiction conventions, the importance of mutual trust as a founding principle of the common market, the relevance of the delocalisation debate to the topic, and the proposal for reform advanced at the end of this thesis.