• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.45-80
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• 2006

The purpose of this paper is to make research on the method of arbitration agreement, the adoption and contents of the Convention on the Use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts, and the standpoint and problem with reference to the new Convention's application to the method of arbitration agreement in New York Convention. Last year the UN General Assembly and UNCITRAL adopted a new Convention on the Use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts that makes agreements by electronic communications enforceable, including arbitration agreements under the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral A wards (New York Convention). Aimed at enhancing legal certainty and commercial predictability where electronic communications are used in relation to international contracts, the provisions of the Convention deal with, among other things, determining a party's location in an electronic environment; the time and place of dispatch and receipt of electronic communications; and the use of automated message systems for contract formation. Under the New York Convention, arbitration agreements in international contracts must be reduced to writing before they can be enforced. But under the new Convention, an arbitration agreement made entirely in electronic form would be enforceable. The working group expressed overall support in favor of the inclusion of a reference to the New York Convention in the new Convention. However, one proposal was that the exclusions provided under article 2 of the new Convention might be too broadly worded to adequately accommodate the New York Convention. In conclusion, Korea's government authorities should take prompt measures to sign and ratify the new Convention, and declare on the scope of its application. Also Korea's arbitration institute should make preparation for the amendment of the arbitration act and arbitration rules in accordance with the new Convention.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.31-52
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• 2019

As international transactions have grown more numerous, situations of disputes related to the transactions are getting more complicated and more diverse. Cost-effective remedies to settle the disputes through traditional methods such as adjudications of a court will be insufficient. There fore, nations are attempting to more efficiently solve investor-state disputes through arbitration under organizations such as the ICSID Convention, the ICSID Additionary Facility Rules, and the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules by including the provisions on investor-state dispute settlement at the conclusion of an investment agreement. In case of an arbitration under the ICSID Convention, ICSID directly exercises the supervisorial function on arbitral proceedings, and there is no room for the intervention of national courts. In time of the arbitration where the ICSID Convention does not apply, however, the courts have to facilitate the arbitral proceedings. When the recognition and enforcement of an arbitral award under the ICSID Convention are guaranteed by the Convention, it should be considered that the New York Convention does not apply to them under the Convention Article 7 (1) fore-end. In exceptional cases in which an arbitral award under the ICSID Convention cannot be recognized or enforced by the Convention, the New York Convention applies to the recognition and enforcement because the award is not a domestic award of the country in which the recognition or enforcement is sought. It is up to an interpretation of the New York Convention whether the New York Convention applies to ISDS arbitral awards not based on the ICSID Convention or not. Although an act of the host country is about sovereign activities, a host country and the country an investor is in concurring to the investment agreement with the ISDS provisions is considered a surrender of sovereignty immunity, and it will not suffice to exclude the investment disputes from the scope of application of the New York Convention. If the party to the investment agreement has declared commercial reservation at its accession into the New York Convention, it should be viewed that the Convention applies to the recognition and enforcement of the ISDS awards to settle the disputes over an investitive act, inasmuch as the act will be considered as a commercial transaction. When the recognition and enforcement of an arbitral award on investment disputes about a nation's sovereign act have been sought in Korea and Korea has been designated the place of the investment agreement arbitration as a third country, it should be reviewed whether the disputes receive arbitrability under the Korean Arbitration Act or not.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.121-150
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• 2006

Under the New York Convention, parties can petition the courts of the United States to confirm foreign arbitral awards. Although there is no definition in the Convention for 'non-domestic' awards, in the United States, federal and state courts read the Convention broadly and interpret this as permitting the enforcing authority to supply its own definition of 'non-domestic' in conformity with its own domestic law. There are a number of federal cases on this point. The court preferred this broad construction of 'non-domestic' awards because it comported with the intended purpose of the Convention, which was entered into to encourage the recognition and enforcement of international arbitral awards. This means that in applying the New York Convention, U.S. courts have responded to the underlying spirit rather than the technical letter of the Convention. In brief, the New York Convention has much broader application in the United States. It is applicable not only to awards rendered outside of the United States, but also to non-domestic awards rendered within United States. As this article suggests, the general attitude towards foreign awards is more pro-enforcement in the United States, whether the award is rendered in favor of the American party or in favor of the foreign party.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.3-24
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• 2010

In the approaching 21th century, the outstanding development in international trade and commerce has established arbitration as the preferred form of dispute resolution on international business transaction. Because the form of commercial dispute becomes more complicated and varied with the quantitative increase of them, the reasonable and rapid settlement of them must be the important problem simultaneously. In this article, the author discusses various issues on the recognition and enforcement of an foreign arbitral awards under Korean Arbitration Act, which is modeled after the Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration of the UNCITRAL of 1985. The Dec. 31, 1999 amendment to the Korean Arbitration Act admits the basis for enforcement of foreign arbitral awards rendered under United Nations Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards of 1958(commonly known as the New York Convention). Korea has acceded to the New York Convention since 1973. When acceding to the convention, Korea declared that it will apply the Convention to the recognition and enforcement of awards made only in the territory of anther Contracting State on the basis of reciprocity. Also, Korea declared that it will apply the Convention only to differences arising out of legal relationships, whether contractual or not, which are considered as commercial under the national law of Korea. The provision relating to the enforcement of arbitral awards falling under the New York Convention consists of Article III, IV, V. In particular, Article V of the New York Convention enumerates the grounds for refusal of recognition foreign arbitral awards. The grounds are separated into two categories : One that abides by procedures and the others are based on national legal sovereignty. In Korea, a holder of a foreign arbitral award is obliged to request from the court a judgment ordering enforcement of awards. Because Korea requires enforcement to be based on a judgement, the result is that arbitral of award holders are forced to institute domestic litigation.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.113-133
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• 2015

This article reviews some recent decisions of the Supreme People's Court (SPC) of the People's Republic of China (PRC) on the recognition and enforcement of several South Korean arbitral awards. It explains the implementation of the New York Convention in the PRC and in particular the so-called Report System under the current Mainland Chinese law and judicial practice. It identifies some deficiencies in the People's Courts' approaches to the application and interpretation of the New York Convention and argues that the Mainland Chinese courts should adopt the pro-enforcement principle in the determination of the relevant issues under the New York Convention. It proposes further enhancement of the Report System and that the current categorization of 'domestic, foreign-related and foreign' in the context of arbitration agreements and arbitral awards needs to be further reviewed and clarified by the SPC. Last but not the least, it recommends some steps that South Korean parties should take to enhance the enforceability of South Korean Arbitral Awards in Mainland China.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.213-244
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• 2004

This article studied on international trade dispute of enforcement procedure of foreign arbitral awards at Korean Supreme Court, which is especially related to New York Convention article 5, The key points of most enforcement procedure were about public policy according New York Convention article 5, 2, b and New York Convention article 5, 1. Particularly, Judgement of public policy from Supreme Court represented that the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral award is to present and protect basic moral conviction and social order from spoiling, and not only domestic situation but also international stability of transaction should be taken into consideration in judging on recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral award, which is construed under certain limitation. In this point, you should be understand the concept on refusal reasons in enforcing of foreign arbitral awards

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.29-49
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• 2021

The Chinese Arbitration Law came into force in 1995 and has been implemented for 26 years. As a party to the New York Convention, there are many contradictions and conflicts between the Chinese Arbitration Law and the New York Convention on the issue of ad hoc arbitration, and this institutional disconnection can bring about problems such as misalignment of arbitration powers. On July 30, 2021, China's Ministry of Justice published a draft of the revised Arbitration Law for public consultation, and the draft has generated a lively debate among the public. This article explores the reasonable and inadequate points of the draft of Arbitration Law in light of the recent trends in the use of commercial arbitration in China, the COVID-19, the Free Trade Zone, and the relationship between the Civil Code and the Arbitration Law.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.25-46
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• 2010

In spite of great interest and recent innovation of the legislative system in the Arbitration and other Alternative Dispute Resolution(ADR) system, In Japan there have been only a few case in which International commercial dispute was settled through the Arbitration compared to other countries. However, we can easily expect that foreign arbitral awards which need to be recognized and enforced in Japan will gradually increase and this makes it very important for us to review the Japanese legislative system regarding recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. In this paper, I focused on the relations between applicable laws(including convention) regarding recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards in Japan and some issues concerning refusal of recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. Japan is a member state of several multilateral conventions concerning recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards including the New York Convention of 1958 and at least 20 bilateral agreements which include provisions in relate to the recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards. Therefore there are some legal issues about the priority application between multilateral and bilateral agreements in relate to Article 7(1) of the New York Convention. In Japan, as I mentioned in this paper, there are incoherent opinions concerning this issue. To solve it substantially it would seem appropriate to build up concrete and explicit provisions concerning the application of priority between multilateral and bilateral agreements. On the other hand, in relate to the application between the New York Convention and National Law, it is necessary to take general approach regarding the priority application between Convention (Treaty) and National Law, considering the national application of conventions under the Constitutional System of each country. Among the grounds for non-recognition/enforcement, there are the ones that are decided under the law of the requested country, for instance, arbitrability and public policy. It would therefore be possible that some foreign arbitral awards would not be recognized in Japan especially relating to the arbitrability because its scope in Japan is not so large. Regarding the enforcement of awards annulled in their place of origin, some positive opinions in recent Japanese legal discussions, say that annulled awards should be enforced as a counter strategy of developed countries and judiciary discretion of the requested country would be needed. As mentioned in this paper, the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards is closely related to judicial policy of the requested country as the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgment is. Even though there existed uniform rules on recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards like the New York convention, each country has different internal legal status of conventions under its own Constitutional System and tends to interpret the provisions based in its own profit. Therefore, it is necessary to review, in the light of conflict of laws, the national legislative system including legal status of conventions of the requested countries concerning recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.3-30
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• 2007

The New York Convention(formally called "United Nations Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards") done in New York on June 10, 1958 has been adhered to by more than 140 States at the time of this writing, including almost all important trading nations from the Capitalist and Socialist World as well as many developing countries. The Convention can be considered as the most important Convention in the field of arbitration and as the cornerstone of current international commercial arbitration. Korea has acceded to the New York Convention since 1973. When acceding to the Convention, Korea declared that it will apply the Convention to the recognition and enforcement of awards made only in the territory of another Contracting State on the basis of reciprocity. Also, Korea declared that it will apply the Convention only to differences arising out of legal relationships, whether contractual or not, which are considered as commercial under the national law of Korea. The provisions relating to the enforcement of arbitral awards falling under the New York Convention begin at Article III. The Article III contains the general obligation for the Contracting States to recognize Convention awards as binding and to enforce them in accordance with their rules of procedure. The Convention requires a minimum of conditions to be fulfilled by the party seeking enforcement. According to Article IV(1), that party has only to supply (1) the duly authenticated original award or a duly certified copy thereof, and (2) the original arbitration agreement or a duly certified copy thereof. In fulfilling these conditions, the party seeking enforcement produces prima facie evidence entitling it to obtain enforcement of the award. It is then up to the other party to prove that enforcement should not be granted on the basis of the grounds for refusal of enforcement enumerated in the subsequent Article V(1). Grounds for refusal of enforcement are stipulated in Article V is divided into two parts. Firstly, listed in the first Para. of Article V are the grounds for refusal of enforcement which are to be asserted and proven by the respondent. Secondly, listed in Para. 2 of Article V, are the grounds on which a court may refuse enforcement on its own motion. These grounds are non-arbitrability of the subject matter and violation of the public policy of the enforcement country. The three main features of the grounds for refusal of enforcement of an award under Article V, which are almost unanimously affirmed by the courts, are the following. Firstly, The grounds for refusal of enforcement mentioned in Article V are exhaustive. No other grounds can be invoked. Secondly, and this feature follows from the first one, the court before which enforcement of the award is sought may not review the merits of the award because a mistake in fact or law by the arbitrators is not included in the list of grounds for refusal of enforcement set forth in Article V. Thirdly, the party against whom enforcement is sought has the burden of proving the existence of one or more of the grounds for refusal of enforcement. The grounds for refusal of enforcement by a court on its own motion, listed in the second Para. of Article V, are non-arbitrability of the subject matter and public policy of the enforcement country. From the court decisions reported so far at home and abroad, it appears that courts accept a violation of public policy in extreme cases only, and frequently justify their decision by distinguishing between domestic and international public policy. The Dec. 31, 1999 amendment to the Arbitration Act of Korea admits the basis for enforcement of foreign arbitral awards rendered under the New York Convention. In Korea, a holder of a foreign arbitral award is obliged to request from the court a judgment ordering enforcement of the award.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.79-103
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• 2014

In light of increasing international trade in recent years, international arbitration has been more widely used by international parties to resolve their conflicts. Thus, the need for reliable and effective enforcement of foreign arbitral awards has amplified. To facilitate the enforcement of foreign arbitral awards, the New York Convention lists grounds for the refusal of recognition and enforcement in Article V. This paper examines prominent U.S. case law on Article V(1)(b), which is put in place to ensure that arbitration proceedings are conducted properly in accordance with due process requirements: proper notice to parties and an opportunity to a fundamentally fair hearing. This examination of case law conveys that U.S. courts refuse to enforce foreign arbitral awards pursuant to Article V(1)(b) only when due process rights of the party against whom the award is to be enforced are clearly violated by the arbitral tribunal. This paper also reveals that U.S. courts mainly defer to arbitral tribunals' discretion, especially as to evidentiary matters. Therefore, it is predicted that U.S. courts will likely continue to narrowly construe the grounds in Article V to facilitate reliable and effective enforcement of foreign arbitral awards in the U.S.