• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.37
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• pp.133-158
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• 2008

The purpose of this article is to examine the "Annulment" of ICSID Arbitration Award. Most of the international conventions provide for arbitration as the preferred method of dispute settlement. In general they either provide for ad hoc arbitration under the UNCITRAL Rules or under the rules of an acceptable arbitration institution, e.g. ICC, AAA, LCIA and in particular ICSID. The most distinctive feature of ICSID arbitration is the self-contained and exhaustive nature of its review procedures. Unlike other arbitration regimes, control is exercised by internal procedures rather than by the courts. Remedies against the award are limited to those provided for in the Convention and do not include court involvement. Especially, the annulment of the ICSID award by an ad hoc committee must be considered as jeopardizing ICSID Arbitration because it clearly depart from the current trends of international commercial arbitration which limits any kinds of judicial review and excludes any kinds of review on the merits. I wish that the future decisions of the ad hoc committees will restore a narrow scope to the ICSID procedure of annulment in order not to endanger the ICSID Arbitration mechanism.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.3-28
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• 2014

This article examines the Annulment Mechanism of arbitral awards rendered under the auspices of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). The primary feature in the ICSID and non-ICSID arbitration regarding the review of awards involves the unified nature of the ICSID system, as compared to the scattered and multi-layered system of review existing under arbitration rules, national legislation, and international convention. This unity can be perceived at different levels. The ICSID annulment mechanism entails only a set of rules; thus, only one set of application standards of review will be implemented, as opposed to sometimes conflicting layers of application rules, laws, and convention, as in the case of non-ICSID arbitration. However, some of the recent annulment decisions have raised serious questions about the breadth of annulment in practice, as opposed to its original design. Nonetheless, implementing a new system under the ICSID awards to be reviewed by an appellate court appears to create more problems than it solves. The potential impact of introducing that mechanism could result in a longer and more complex proceeding, with uncertain benefits.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.141-158
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• 2007

The purpose of this paper is to examine the validity or effectiveness of the Arbitration Clause such as Model Clause I, and to confirm how other issues such as arbitrable "investment", appointment of arbitrators and law governing the agreement be reflected in the agreement. However, the parties should be sure that the arbitration clause is valid if they have checked whether, for their particular situation, the ICSID Centre has jurisdiction. For the validity of the Arbitration Clause, first the host country and the country which the investor belong to must be "contracting states" to the ICSID Convention. Second, the specific consent to arbitrate must be expressed in writing in the investment contract or in a national investment law or in an investment protection treaty. The issue of "nationality" of an other contracting state is determined by the place of incorporation or the location of the head office. In case the parties have doubts about a valid consent to arbitrate, Art. 41 of the ICSID Convention provides, regarding ICSID jurisdiction, that the tribunal shall be the judge of its own competence. It follows that ICSID Arbitration has an autonomous and exclusive character. As a consequence, domestic courts may not interfere with the question of ICSID's jurisdiction, which is called as "rule of abstention".

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.3-21
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• 2020

This study focuses on the binding power of the interim measures of the arbitral tribunal in ICSID arbitration and the effects of non-compliance. Upon consideration of the intentions of those who made these rules, given the interpretation of the provisions of Article 47 of the ICSID Convention and Article 39 of the ICSID Arbitration Rules, it was found reasonable to consider that the interim measures made by the arbitral tribunal in ICSID arbitration were not binding. However, in actual ICSID arbitration, most arbitral tribunals approve the binding power of the interim measures based on the purposes and the characteristics of the interim measures. As such, there is a certain distance between the legislative intention for interim measures in ICSID arbitration and the judicial practice, but considering the demand for maintaining the integrity of the arbitration procedure, it is reasonable to consider that the interim measures are binding. In addition, the fact that the interim measures have binding power can increase the possibility that the party will comply with the interim measures. Thus, the binding power of interim measures not only encourages voluntary compliance to the interim measures of the party, but can also cause negative consequences for the party if it is not met. In other words, the arbitral tribunal will be able to form negative inferences against the party who does not comply with it in a procedural side, and in the practical side, the party who does not comply with the interim measures will be compensated for the additional damages for non-compliance.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.123-156
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• 2004

Settlement of investment disputes is quite different from that of commercial disputes arising from ordinary commercial transactions in view of disputing parties, applicable laws and rules, etc.. Therefore, it is very important to consider the Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States(Washington Convention) of 1965. The creation of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes(ICSID), which was established under the Washington Convention, was the belief that an institution specially designed to facilitate the settlement of investment disputes between governments and foreign investors could help to promote increased flows of international investment. Pursuant to the Washington Convention, ICSID provides facilities for the conciliation and arbitration of disputes between member countries and investors who qualify as nationals of other member countries. Recourse to ICSID conciliation and arbitration is entirely voluntary. However, once the parties have consented to arbitration under the Washington Convention, neither can unilaterally withdraw its consent. Moreover, all Contracting States of the Washington Convention are required by the Convention to recognize and enforce ICSID arbitral awards. Provisions on ICSID arbitration are commonly found in investment contracts between governments of member countries and investors from other member countries. Advance consents by governments to submit investment disputes to ICSID arbitration can also be found in many bilateral investment treaties including the Korea-China Agreement on the Encouragement and Reciprocal Protection of Investments(1992), the Korea-Japan Agreement for the Liberalization, Promotion and Protection of Investment(2003) and the Korea-Chile FTA, the latter was signed as of February 15, 2003 and is still pending in the National Assembly for its ratification. Arbitration under the auspices of ICSID is similarly one of the main mechanism for the settlement of investment disputes under the bilateral treaties on investment. Therefore, it is a problem of vital importance that Korean parties interested in investment to foreign countries should understand and cope with the settlement mechanism of investment disputes under the Washington Convention and bilateral investment treaties.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.71-96
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• 2015

This paper deals with the annulment of the ICSID(International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes) arbitral award. The annulment of the ICSID is characterized by the fact that it can be made possible through the special committee of ICSID only. The annulment of the ICSID was constructed on the premise that it is not an appeal procedure. However in the initial period, it was strongly criticized as it allowed new trials or duplicated many of the functions of an appeal and it broke down the boundary between the two systems. Although the trend seemed to be corrected through its 2nd and 3rd generations, it was still criticized for functioning as a new trial. It is approaching its 4th generation. On the other hand, with the activation of investment agreement arbitration based on ICSID and FTA, a certain degree of consistency is required for the ICSID arbitralaward. Also, with the emphasis on the public features of the arbitration for the investment agreement, the necessity of an appeal system is presented. The ICSID Secretariat published the "Opinion on the Appeal Procedure" in 2004 but as the system was criticized as too early due to the cost allocation problem and others, its adoption of an appeal procedure has been delayed. This paper focuses on how the currently incomplete ICSID arbitration judgment annulment system shall be used. Although it is still hardto expect the quality and consistent arbitral award annulment in the ICSID, this paper suggests that the "annulment without the actual new trial" using the restricted authority of a special commission in a creative way shall be pursued rather than just the actual new trial with or without annulment, thus going back to the original concept of the ICSID arbitral award annulment.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.27-42
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• 2018

Due to the increasing number of foreign investments made by state-owned enterprises, there has been a growth in the number of investment arbitration claims submitted by them. However, international investment treaties including the ICSID Convention are intended to apply to investor-state disputes and according to Article 25 of the ICSID Convention, the claimant has to be "a national of another Contracting State." This raises the question of whether state-owned companies can be considered as "nationals of another Contracting State" or private investors. This issue has been discussed in the ICSID Decision on Jurisdiction in BUCG v. Yemen which has been released in 2017. Since there would be more claims related to the standing of state-owned enterprises as claimants, it is required to understand whether state-owned enterprises could be permitted access to the ICSID under the ICSID Convention Article 25. Moreover, the ICSID cases addressing the jurisdictional issues including BUCG v. Yemen has to be closely analyzed. In particular, as the Broches test was applied in order to decide the standing of state-owned companies, it is necessary to examine how the Broches criteria has been interpreted and adopted in the ICSID cases.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.59-83
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• 2014

In the past, the mention of "international arbitration" would have brought to mind only commercial arbitration. However, the frequency of investment treaty arbitration has seen remarkable grow thanks to the rise of globalization and the spread of multi-national corporations. Reflecting on the current state of the world, this paper introduces the meaning, characteristics, and differences between commercial arbitration and investment treaty arbitration in the context of procedural considerations. To this end, this paper examines some major procedural differences among the said types of arbitration, by dividing commercial arbitration into institutional arbitration and ad hoc arbitration, and dividing investment treaty arbitration into ICSID arbitration and UNCITRAL Rules arbitration.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.43
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• pp.481-507
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• 2009

Along with continuous increase in international investments encouraged by wide spread bilateral investment treaties (BIT) including free trade agreements (FTA), international investment disputes have been also increasing. This means that a host State, an importer of foreign investments, and a investor who exports its investment to foreign State, need to take measures to prevent international disputes arising from international investment or to prepare for the arbitration for resolving the disputes. Under these circumstances, this paper compares ICSID arbitration rules and UNCITRAL arbitration rules in respect of (i) the institution of arbitration, (ii) the appointment of arbitrators and the composition of arbitral tribunal, and (iii) the procedures for, and the form of, arbitral awards. On base of this comparison, this paper further suggests certain practical issues that the host State's government and the foreign investors should be aware of in order to be ready for the resolutions of disputes by ICSID or UNCITRAL arbitrations.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.3-26
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• 2018

This article examines whether parties may agree to contractually waive the right to bring annulment proceedings. Alternately it looks at whether certain grounds of annulment may be waived. The ability for parties to resolve this issue contractually by waiving this element of Article 52(1)(b) ICSID offers a potentially powerful solution. For parties to agree beforehand to the circumstances where tribunals have not 'manifestly exceeded their power' could allow them to remove the unpredictability of annulment on this foundation. Even in the event that an ad hoc committee is against the validity of waiver, it may be possible for a party to frame this restriction as an interpretative agreement by the parties rather than strictly as waiver of a ground of annulment. Ultimately, the wish to enter into such an agreement would likely only be driven by a few exceptional commercial need or prior negative experience with the remedy of annulment. In that cases, and depending on the nature of the specific concern with annulment, a limited waiver or interpretative agreement on certain Article 52(1) ICSID grounds may certainly be appropriate.