LAWS7868 International Commercial Arbitration Law

This course deals in depth with the process of international commercial arbitration, which is one of the major growth areas of legal practice and the most widely used dispute resolution method in international business.

This course is concerned with using arbitration to resolve international commercial disputes. The course first analyses the nature of an arbitration, then the basic concepts in international commercial arbitration and considers how it has developed into a coherent global system to resolve disputes in cross-border transactions. The nature and history of the major international instruments governing international arbitration are explained. The relationship between an international commercial arbitration and judicial proceedings before a national court is analysed. The legal systems relating to an international commercial arbitration and the resulting award are considered. The course then addresses the practice and procedure of an international arbitration from the viewpoint both of legal representatives of the parties and of the members of an arbitral tribunal from the time of the dispute arising up to the making of the award.  The course also considers the global enforcement regime for an international commercial arbitration award. The course includes a brief introduction to investment treaty arbitration, by way of comparison with international commercial arbitration, and an explanation of the issues involved in drafting a valid and binding international arbitration dispute resolution clause.