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The principle of party autonomy is widely accepted in the practice of international commercial arbitration. However, it still encounters certain limitations in its applications, especially for the fact that the demands of natural justice and the public good cannot be neglected by the parties. The various states in the international system have and operate peculiar systems of mandatory rules and public policies, which tend to impart significantly on the arbitral procedure, thereby creating a situation of discordance of outcomes of arbitration in different countries. For this reason, this writer intends to examine ways by which the various procedural laws can actually be harmonised. This thesis shall therefore focus on the discordances and confusion that often arise in the interacion of the various laws that may be applicable to the arbitral process in International commercial arbitration, as well as ways of achieving a harmonisation of these laws.

This thesis explains that the development of the law of the carriage of goods by sea has led to the appearance of the Hague, Hague-Visby and Hamburg Rules. The existence of these different conventions plainly contributes to the breakdown of uniformity. The thesis, nevertheless, argues that international uniformity is still valuable since it reduces the legal costs significantly. However, many conflicts arise among the various countries in interpreting these conventions. Such conflicts lead to uncertainty and unpredictability, and in consequence, to the increase of legal costs. In proving the latter, the thesis examines and evaluates the conflicts of interpretations of these conventions brought on by containerisation. The thesis proves the inadequacy of various propositions on the question of how to avoid such conflicts. It argues, however, that the failure to consider foreign decisions is a significant factor of having such conflicts. In proving the latter, the thesis provides a comparative study in evaluating various courts' decisions that relate to containerisation. The thesis, however, evaluates different measures to achieve international uniform interpretations. Most of these measures are not completely satisfactory solutions to such achievement. Accordingly, the thesis examines the obstacles that may face the applicability of comparative law in practice, and the capability of avoiding these obstacles. The thesis also offers various observations in relation to how the national courts shall consider comparative law. The key point is that the divergence that characterised the interpretation of the existing conventions will reappear unless there is some obligation on national courts to consider and apply comparative law. The thesis therefore proposes that any future convention relating to the law of carriage of goods by sea shall specify that the national courts of every contracting state shall refer to the decisions of the other contracting states when dealing with questions of interpretation.

No description available.

The discussion examines the idea that because of its relatively unique nature, commercial law has the distinct ability to evolve and function in the absence of a central coercive authority. While law of a non-commercial nature generally requires the backing of a state through which to derive its efficacy, a great deal of commercial law as it exists today evolves often in the absence of a single coercive authority, shaped largely by market forces outside the purview of any one state power. To this end, we look primarily at transnational commercial law, specifically at what is commonly understood as the new law merchant. It is the central contention of this paper that commercial law stands apart from other forms of law in that it is uniquely equipped to generate norms in situations where a single legislative power is notably not present, as it is largely impacted by the choices and behaviour of individual economic actors. We examine the notion that the manner of interaction implied by commercial intercourse involves a higher degree of overall engagement. This we term ‘high engagement’, which we divide into two elements: repetition and game creation, which with reciprocity, works in tandem to produce identifiable legal norms and the subsequent compliance with them. In Part I, after presenting a brief overview of the idea of reciprocity and spontaneous law theory, a more detailed explanation of the notion of engagement is offered. In Part II, we set out exactly how high engagement facilitates the development of and compliance with legal norms. Finally, the conclusion this paper reaches is that this element of high engagement, a salient characteristic of commercial interaction, plays a decisive role in the ability of commercial law to evolve and function in the vacuum of a central legislative authority.