Legal Certainty and Arbitration

Author(s):  
Frédéric Bachand ◽  
Fabien Gélinas

This chapter assesses legal certainty in international arbitration. It specifically considers the noticeable shift in the balance between legal certainty and legal flexibility. While legal flexibility surely continues to deserve a place among the core values of international arbitration, it is legal certainty’s stock that has been on the rise in recent years. The shift can be felt throughout the international arbitration system, and it is mainly driven by an increased awareness that too much flexibility can ultimately imperil arbitration’s legitimacy. While, in the commercial setting, the shift toward greater certainty is occurring in response to concerns emanating from users of arbitral services, in the investment context, it rather reflects concerns about the power of arbitrators to shape public international law.

2011 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 873-897 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHELLE BURGIS

AbstractStraddling both the centres of (European) power and the shifting dynamics of the post-Ottoman world in a quest to guarantee private rights through public international legal redress, the PCIJ Mavrommatis case provides a rich resource for interrogating the extent to which international law during the League period could speak for voices on the edge of empire. In this article, historical consideration of the regimes of empire and Mandate form the backdrop to an exploration into how international legal discourse (re)configured the relationship between the core and the periphery, especially for those peoples awaiting the promise of self-determination and sovereignty. The figure of a lone Greek investor and his dashed hopes in the newly created Palestine Mandate is the backdrop to this tail of ever-shifting interpretations of public and private rights, of speech as well as silence before and beyond the Peace Palace.


Author(s):  
Magnusson Annette

This chapter provides an overview of energy-related sustainability objectives. It also provides a list of instruments aimed at their enforcement. Today, not many avenues are available to use international arbitration to enforce sustainability objectives. The chapter analyzes whether and how international arbitration can offer support for desirable developments towards meeting sustainable energy needs for the future by encouraging new instruments and other innovations. It also acknowledges the importance of what might be called ‘indirect’ enforcement of sustainability objectives, via legal instruments other than those defining the sustainability objectives as such (eg commercial arbitration enforcing the construction of a solar energy plant).


Author(s):  
Dan Jerker B. Svantesson

This chapter advances a new jurisprudential framework for jurisdiction and discusses it in detail, outlining how it may be applied, and responds to some potential concerns that may be raised against the framework. The framework is focused on: (1) there being a substantial connection between the state claiming jurisdiction and the matter; (2) the state claiming jurisdiction having a legitimate interest in the matter; and (3) a balancing of that state’s interest with other relevant interests. As this framework represents the core of jurisdiction in both public international law and in private international law, it effectively unifies those two disciplines commonly viewed as distinct.


2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 695-726
Author(s):  
Konstanze von Papp

A purely consensual approach to international arbitration has its limits even in commercial arbitration. In investment treaty arbitration, the traditional approach to finding ‘consent’ to arbitrate encounters difficulties if there are any pre-arbitration requirements that have not been satisfied. This will be illustrated by the case of BG Group v Republic of Argentina. Drawing a line between purely ‘procedural’ pre-arbitration requirements and those that are strict conditions on a host state’s consent to arbitrate is difficult, if not impossible. This article suggests alternative solutions, taking into account the need to appreciate domestic arbitration laws as well as public international law concerns. ‘Biting the bullet’ would mean accepting the lack of consent between host state and investor. A doctrinally clearer approach to jurisdictional issues could then be found by drawing an analogy to non-signatory issues in commercial arbitration.


1973 ◽  
Vol 67 (5) ◽  
pp. 245-248
Author(s):  
James Nevins Hyde

Transnational law includes municipal law, public international law, and conflicts, including some attention to comparative law. For example, the international arbitration between the Arabian-American Oil Company and the Government of Saudi Arabia required George Sauser-Hall, the arbitrator, to weigh all of these variables. When you consider working in this field you should realize that you are concerned with politics, economics, and different bodies of law and also with great areas of uncertainty. I suppose that the current ITT case with $92 millions of investment insurance is a good example of the uncertainty when a political and legal situation gets mixed up.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 516
Author(s):  
Luis A. López Zamora

 Resumen: El derecho del arbitraje internacional no es estrictamente internacional ni doméstico. A decir verdad, aquel cuerpo legal constituye un producto de la voluntad de las partes que han elegido resol­ver sus litigios mediante aquel tipo de mecanismo de solución de controversias. Ahora bien, aunque ello es así, dichas atribuciones presentan ciertos límites. Y es que, los laudos arbitrales internacionales formulados bajo aquellas libertades, son en estricto una forma de justicia privada y, como resultado de ello, los Estados en donde los mismos busquen ser ejecutados podrán rechazar su implementación en ciertas circunstancias. Una de aquellas circunstancias se produce cuando un laudo arbitral infringe el orden público (ordre public) del Estado donde éste busca ser ejecutado. Esta es una regla ampliamente reconocido, sin embargo, genera un problema. Y es que, la noción del orden público es contingente por naturaleza y, dado ello, ha sido nece­sario que su aplicación proceda solo en circunstancias excepcionales. Como resultado de esto, algunos aca­démicos y tribunales estatales han tratado de formular una noción del orden público de tipo internacional con el fin de establecer un contenido más restrictivo a aquella excepción. Sin embargo, esta terminología ha sido construida solo como una forma de identificar una sub-sección del orden público estatal. Esto lleva a ciertas preguntas: ¿Está el arbitraje internacional y, sus instituciones, circunscritas a elementos puramente domésticos? ¿Dónde queda la faceta internacional de los contratos de comercio internacional y de inver­siones si la excepción del orden público fuese a ser analizada desde un enfoque puramente estatal? Estas dudas han sido –tomadas en cuenta de alguna forma, en algunos sistemas legales, en donde el uso del orden público internacional ha sido estructurado en términos verdaderamente internacionales. Sin embargo, esto último también crea interrogantes a plantearse: ¿Qué implica hablar del orden público en el plano interna­cional? ¿Cuál es su contenido y, puede ser utilizado de forma práctica para excluir la ejecución de un laudo arbitral internacional? ¿Cuál es el rol del Derecho Internacional Público en todo esto? ¿Si el verdadero orden público internacional es utilizado, será aquel un punto de contacto entre el Derecho Internacional Público y el Derecho Internacional Privado? Estas y otras interrogantes serán tratadas en este espacio.Palabras clave: arbitraje internacional, orden público, orden público internacional, ejecución de laudos arbitrales, relación entre el derecho internacional público y el derecho internacional privado.Abstract: International arbitration is not domestic nor international in nature. In fact, the law appli­cable to that kind of proceedings can be considered a byproduct of the will of private parties. However, this wide attribution recognized to individuals have some limits. In this regard, it must be born in mind that arbitral awards represent a sort of private justice and, therefore, States requested to execute those kind of decisions can refuse their enforcement within their jurisdictions. One scenario that entails the non-enforcement of and arbitral award happens when the decision collides with the public policy (ordre public) of the State where is supposed to be implemented. This is widely recognized as a fundamental rule in international arbitration, nevertheless, a problem arises. The notion of public policy is contingent in nature and, because of that, it requires to be applied in very specific circumstances. That is why some academics and state tribunals have formulated the notion of international public policy as a term directed to narrow the content of that institution, but using to that end purely domestic legal content. In this sense, the term international public policy emerged as a merely sub-section of domestic public policy divested of any international meaning. In that context: ¿should international arbitration institutions (as the excep­tion of ordre public), be understood by purely domestic elements? ¿Where would be the international aspect of international commercial contract or investment if the exception of public policy is analyzed by purely domestic constructions? Those doubts have pushed in some systems, the formulation of in­ternational public policy in truly international terms. This is somehow welcomed, however, this usage creates additional doubts: ¿What does a public policy of the international realm entail? ¿What is its content and, can that be used in practical ways to exclude the enforcement of and international arbitral award? ¿What is the role of Public International Law in all of this? ¿If truly international public policy is used by domestic tribunals, would that be a point of connection between Public International Law and Private International Law? These and other questions will be entertained in this paper.Keywords: international arbitration, public policy, international public policy, enforcement of ar­bitral awards, public international law – private international law relationship.


2003 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
WOLFGANG WEISS

This article focuses on the interpretation and application of law in WTO dispute settlement from the angle of legal certainty and predictability. An analysis of the interpretation of WTO law shows that in general it does not differ from the interpretation of other public international law as interpretative rules well known in international law are applied. This together with the consistence provided by the respect of earlier panel and Appellate Body reports safeguard legal certainty. Furthermore, legal certainty and predictability requires clarity in the law applicable in WTO dispute settlement, in particular as regards non-WTO law. It will be shown that apart from peremptory norms of public international law (ius cogens), the relevance of international law outside WTO law is limited. Non-WTO treaty law must not be applied except if referred to by WTO law or incorporated therein. Apart from that international law of any kind can only be considered when interpreting WTO law. In certain circumstances this applies even to non-WTO treaty law to which not all WTO members are parties. Due to the as yet limited importance of non-WTO law, legal certainty and predictability also depend on the issue of conflict of norms, which also is relevant as far as the interrelationship of the different WTO agreements is concerned. In this regard predictability and legal certainty cannot be fully reached.


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