The importance and long-term consequences of the efficient resolution of commercial disputes is undoubted in the industrialised world. Until relatively recently, the principal burden had fallen on the several national court systems which captured the majority of such disputes. However, economic liberalisation and technological change over the last two decades have profoundly altered the global economy.
Business has responded to the reduction in trade barriers and advancement of technology through international expansion, cross-border partnership and joint ventures of every description. This new ‘internationality’ of business and trade patterns alone would have been sufficient to jet-propel the growth of international arbitration. But when coupled with the uncertainties of unknown systems and different procedures and the fact that, for most international transactions, the same national court is unlikely to be acceptable to both sides, the stage was set for a move to processes and institutions more suited to the resolution of a new world of trans-border disputes.
Not surprisingly, the concept and absolute number of international commercial arbitrations have grown enormously. Bolstered by the advantages of confidentiality, speed, country neutrality, relative cost-effectiveness, party autonomy, personal flexibility and access to expert arbitrators, the system is flourishing.
Arbitral awards also benefit from an effective international enforcement regime provided by one of the most extensively ratified treaties in the world – the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (commonly referred to throughout the book as the New York Convention). Today over 135 countries are signatories to it, and the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration (referred to throughout as the Model Law) has come into effect in more than 30 jurisdictions.
Against this backdrop, when The European Lawyer approached me in mid 2003 to discuss the concept of a series of inter-jurisdictional, desktop reference texts, the field of international commercial arbitration stood out as an obvious candidate.
I was of course aware of Pieter Sanders’ and Jan Paulsson’s great contribution to the field, with their four-volume, multi-jurisdictional, multi-paged ICCA Handbook. But despite its depth and excellence, the Handbook does not sit on everyone’s shelves. To address this issue of accessibility, the concept underlying this work is a one-volume text containing a series of reasonably short, but sufficiently detailed jurisdictional overviews, which will permit convenient cross-country comparisons where a quick first look at key issues would be helpful to General Counsel and their clients.
Before agreeing to take on the role of General Editor, I had the chance to discuss the concept, and to test my proposed, question-based, standard chapter format with a number of our most experienced colleagues. The shared view was that the work could prove to be a valuable addition to those international resource materials now available, but that care would have to be taken to ensure that the country contributors provided a dispassionately balanced view of their own regimes and to avoid misdescription through over-simplification. In this respect, I am particularly indebted to Jan Paulsson and Johnny Veeder QC for their generous help, invaluable directional steers and insightful comments on the national chapter templates for the first edition.
Having taken on the task, my aim as General Editor has been to achieve a substantive quality consistent with Arbitration World being seen, in time, as an essential desk-top reference work in our field. To help meet the all-important content/quality objective and to avoid the problems identified by Paulsson and Veeder, I agreed to go forward only if I could attract as contributors colleagues who were among the recognised leaders in the field from each jurisdiction and institution we cover. Now that the book is a reality, and has reached a second edition, I feel blessed to have been able to enlist the support of such an extraordinarily capable list of contributors.
In this second edition we have, I hope, rectified a few irritating glitches in the inaugural publication. Page headers now let readers know where they are, and allow for the quick location of a particular chapter. The work has also been expanded substantially. Important jurisdictions including China, India, Russia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates are among the ten new chapters. The Sweden Arbitration Centre joins the list of covered institutions and a new chapter focuses on UNCITRAL and the New York Convention. I am grateful in particular to Jean-Claude Najar and Klaus Reichart for helpful suggestions for improvement made in their reviews of the first edition.
Without the tireless efforts of Rachel Youngman, the Managing Editor, Elisabeth Doyle, the Sub-Editor and Dawn McGovern, the Production Manager, this new edition never would have been completed within the very tight schedule we allowed ourselves. Patrick Wilkins, the Publisher, and I are greatly indebted to them. Finally, I am enormously grateful to Doris Hutton Smith (of McMillan Binch Mendelsohn, Toronto) who managed endless correspondence with our contributors and typed ongoing revisions to numerous chapters with skill, grace and patience.
I hope that all of my friends and colleagues who have helped with this project have saved me from error – but it is I alone who should be charged with the responsibility for such errors as may appear.
Although it should go without saying, this new edition will obviously benefit from the thoughts and suggestions of our readers, for which we will be extremely grateful, on how we might be able to improve its next edition.
J William Rowley QC January 2006 General Editor London and Toronto.
