• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.32
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• pp.59-91
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• 2006

The Arbitration Act of Korea was promulgated in 1966. Since the promulgation of Arbitration Act of Korea, consecutive amendments took place in 1973, 1993, 1997, 1999, 2001 and 2002. Among the various set of amendments, those of 1999 were designed to accommodate the UNCITRAL Model Law on international Commercial Arbitration of 1985. Korea has acceded to special international conventions on dispute settlement such as the New York Convention of 1958 and the Washington Convention of 1965. The Korean Commercial Arbitration Board(KCAB) administers the arbitration proceedings in accordance with its Arbitration Rules approved by the Korean Supreme Court. Since the establishment of the first Arbitration Rules in 1966. consecutive amendments took place in 1973, 1981, 1989, 1993, 1996, 2000 and 2004. The KCAB plans to enact the International Arbitration Rules, which will be available to disputing parties in addition to the KCAB Arbitration Rules. In 2005, arbitration applications received at KCAB recorded a historic high at 213 cases, an increase of 22% from 175 cases in 2000. But in 2005, the total amount involved in the arbitration cases decreases to US$ 129 million, a decline of 63% from US$ 346 million in 2000. The KCAB should take the following measures for activating the commercial arbitration system: the globalization of KCAB, the advertisement of arbitration system, the security of qualified arbitrators, and the enhancement of the secretariat service. In conclusion, the KCAB should make efforts for the development of the arbitration system and for the upgrade of customer satisfaction. Moreover the KCAB should make further efforts to grow into a global arbitration institution as well as strengthening relations with international arbitration institutions.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.39
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• pp.179-220
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• 2008

The notion of the 'court' is most unique to ICC arbitration. This paper focuses on what the court is and how it works and what the role and the duties of the Court under the ICC arbitration imply for the KCAB International Arbitration Rules. The Court is an administrative body that administers arbitrations taking place under the ICC Rules of Arbitration. The Court consists of 126 members from 88 countries around the world. Court members participate in decision-making process by way of attending the committee sessions and plenary sessions. At the Court's committee sessions, the Court fixes advance on costs; reviews the prima facie existence of arbitration agreements; fixes the place and language of arbitration, and the number of arbitrator(s); confirms and approves arbitrators; scrutinizes draft awards, determines the costs of arbitration; decides on extensions related to Terms of Reference, draft awards and correction and interpretation of the awards. At the Court's plenary sessions, the Court performs only two responsibilities: the challenge or replacement of arbitrators or the scrutiny of draft awards. The Court is required to scrutinize draft awards involving states or state entities, drafts with huge amounts in dispute or complex technical or legal questions, and as well as draft awards to which a dissenting opinion has been attached. Turning to the KCAB International Arbitration Rules, Article 1(3) provides that the KCAB shall establish an International Arbitration Committee. Further, it is provided that the KCAB shall consult with the said Committee with respect to challenge and replacement/removal of arbitrators pursuant to Article 1(3). The notion and role of the International Arbitration Committee was originally adapted from the Court to ICC arbitration, but its role was quite reduced in the process of enactment of its Rules. Accordingly, I examined the detailed roles of the Court to ICC arbitration in this paper and hereby suggest that the KCAB International Arbitration Rules shall be amended in the following ways: The Secretariat of the KCAB shall: fix advance on costs at the first stage and the costs of arbitration at the final stage of the proceedings; determine the number of arbitrators; review the prima facie of existence of arbitration agreement; confirm arbitrators; decide extensions related to time table, draft awards and correction and interpretation of the awards. I, also, suggest that the arbitral tribunals shall fix the place of arbitration and the language of arbitration and make a final decision on the validity of arbitration agreement. With regard to the International Arbitration Committee, it is desirable for its Rules to empower the Committee to recommend any prospective arbitrator and to review and decide challenge and replacement/removal of arbitrators.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.55-83
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• 2022

The United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation (Singapore Mediation Convention) results in new challenges to the area of international dispute resolution by providing the enforcement regime for mediated settlement agreements, which have not been admitted as enforceable in some civil law countries, including Korea and Japan. Japan has struggled to promote international arbitration and international mediation, and such efforts were accelerated by the adoption of the Singapore Mediation Convention in 2018. In order to standardize arbitration proceedings and promote the practice of international arbitration, Japan produced two noticeable results: the new JCAA Arbitration Rules and the amendment to the Arbitration Act of Japan. In addition to that Expedited arbitration procedure and Interactive Arbitration Rules of JCAA present the new possibility of international arbitration procedure for civil law practitioners, the amendment to the Arbitration Act of Japan suggests significant implications to Korea for its manifest provisions regarding enforcement requirements and proceedings and its protection of Access to Justice for foreign law practitioners.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.64
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• pp.99-128
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• 2014

Last year, Seoul International Dispute Resolution Center(SIDRC) was set up to facilitate and promote international arbitration in Korea. This study was focused on the revision of arbitration rules such as ICC, SIAC, HKIAC and JCAA. As a leading arbitration institution in the world, ICC has tried continuously to provide more efficient service to their client by adopting emergency arbitrator(EA) & multi party arbitration. Other three institutions also introduced almost same mechanism to compete each other. These two new system is very innovative in international arbitration. First of all, EA was designed to provide interim measure service to preserve or protect parties' right before the constitution of arbitral tribunal. Arbitration institutions and arbitral tribunals should be careful to decide these requests are legitimate or not because too hasty approval on joinder or consolidation without full consideration such as parties' intention or argument may issue another serious problem - setting aside an award rendered after joined or consolidated.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.39-52
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• 2019

There are various factors to consider when parties to an international agreement draft a dispute resolution clause in their written contract. These factors can be classified into two categories. The first category is about the parties and the nature of the contract, such as the parties' places of business and whether the contract contains a simple transaction or has a complicated nature. The second category is about the applicable rules of the parties' places of business or performance such as the private international law, service of process rules, and enforcement of court judgment and arbitration award rules. When parties to an international contract agree to a litigation, they normally choose a forum court and a governing law. In selecting a forum court and a governing law, the parties must consider private international law, service of process rules, and enforcement of judgement rules of candidate forums. In case the parties agree to an arbitration, they have to choose between institutional arbitration and ad hoc arbitration. For ad hoc arbitration, parties still need to further agree on which arbitration rules to use, and in which place the arbitration shall take place. Mediation involves a similar kind of decision as with arbitration. Traditionally, national courts of the parties' places of business have been used as litigation forums in dispute resolution clauses but, recently, arbitration is being increasingly employed as an alternative dispute resolution method in international contracts. Moreover, there have been international efforts to utilize mediation as a dispute resolution method in international commercial issues. Rather than simply taking a dispute resolution clause provided in a sample written contract, parties to an international contract must carefully consider various relevant factors in order to insert a dispute resolution clause which will work well for a particular contract.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.429-453
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• 2010

The purpose of this paper is to examine the significances of choosing the place of arbitration, the principles of fixing the place, which the major international arbitration institutions(including the ICC, LCIA, AAA, CIETAC and so on) have in their arbitration rules, and the methods of drafting the place of arbitration in arbitration agreements. When the contract parties have agreed on the place of the arbitration, the institutions have no role regarding the selection of the place of arbitration. But the parties have not agreed on the place of arbitration, it is fixed by the rules of selected institution, by considering the lists of criteria including local laws, N.Y. Convention, neutrality, convenience and so on. This author suggested four alternatives on how to designate the place of arbitration, and advantages and disadvantages of each one: the place of claimant, the place of respondent, the place agreed on in advance in Bilateral Agreement between two Arbitration Institutions established in two countries or the third country. In conclusion, the decision of all elements in the international contract is greatly influenced by the power of negotiation, and the place of arbitration in arbitration agreement has a lot of influential significances on both parties when resolving the disputes. So it is advisable for the parties to fix the place according to the global standard(the place of respondent), the arbitration rules of major international arbitration institutes and the result of the negotiation between parties.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.21-54
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• 2011

International commercial arbitration has established itself as the primary dispute resolution mechanism for international business transactions. Certainly, there are commonly-accepted standards that have evolved to reflect an internationally-harmonized approach to issues relating to the taking of evidence. This is reflected in International Bar Association("IBA") Rules for Taking of Evidence in International Evidence("IBA Rules"). This IBA Rules were revised in 2010. Designed to assist parties in determining what procedures to use in their particular case, IBA Rules present some of the methods for conducting international arbitration proceedings. Parties and arbitral tribunals may adopt IBA Rules in whole or in part - at the time of drafting the arbitration clause in a contract or once an arbitration commences - or they may use them as guidelines. They supplement applicable national laws and institutional or ad hoc rules. The IBA Rules were an ambitious undertaking, designed to overcome fundamental cultural differences relating to the taking of evidence under different national court systems. While it is difficult to assess how frequently the IBA Rules are actually adopted by parties, it is fair to say that they have had a considerable influence on the practice of taking evidence in international arbitration. This article mainly describes the essential provisions of IBA Rules, as revised in 2010, including but not limited to production of document, witnesses of fact, party-appointed experts, and tribunal-appointed experts. It also provides a comparison of relevant procedural rules of civil law and common law systems to each of the above mentioned provisions. It is important for arbitration practitioners to understand the differences in the taking of evidence under civil law and common law systems, respectively. This article will be helpful for practitioners and academics not only to understand the revised IBA Rules themselves but also to prepare for, and adequately deal with, the frictions that may arise as a result of the differences in approach for taking evidences. Indeed, so prepared, the arbitration practitioner will be able to anticipate the expectations, perceptions and the conduct of the parties, their counsel and the tribunal members.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.177-200
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• 2013

Recently, many international arbitration institutions have responded to the business requirements of their users and have revised their rules to enhance the time and cost efficiency. Korean Commercial Arbitration Board (KCAB) revised the international arbitration rule in 2011, introducing new arbitration mechanisms like the expedited procedure. Also other Asian arbitration institutions introduced the expedited procedure in their international arbitration rules. Now expedited procedures are regarded as a very attractive system in the field of international arbitration. Accordingly, this paper reviewed the expedited procedures of four Asian countries, including China(CIETAC), Hong Kong (HKIAC), Singapore(SIAC) and Korea(KCAB). The purpose of this study is to find out meaningful implications to improve the Korean system. Based on this review, some recommendations are suggested as follows. First, the scope of the expedited procedure has to be adjusted upward than the current 200 million won. Second, there should be a fee schedule only for the expedited procedure. Third, in case of small amount international disputes, written examination should be more used in the expedited procedure. Finally, KCAB should make strong efforts to improve the awareness and usage of the expedited procedure in Korea.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.67-86
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• 2020

In the case of multiple commerce contracts in commerce, as well as multiple contracts related to it, a solution for the merging of arbitration proceedings is necessary in order to ensure uniformity of dispute resolution. Since the arbitration proceedings are based on the parties' agreement, no merging of two or more arbitration proceedings may transpire unless all parties agree. Claims of merging in arbitration proceedings lead to problems such as lack of party autonomy, resulting from lack of consent of the parties to merging, and how to appoint an arbitrator in a multilateral arbitration proceeding. Many of the major arbitration bodies have recognized the significant benefits of the terms of consolidation, and have recently revised the Arbitration Rules to include or extend existing clauses to reflect the needs of the parties. This study introduces the merging provisions of several selected major arbitration rules, such as the ICC, Switzerland, SCC, LCIA, SIAC, HKIAC, ACICA, and UNCITRAL rules, and looks at the main similarities and differences among the rules.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.3-26
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• 2010

In 2006, the UNCITRAL Working Group II started a new project on the revision of the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules of 1976. Ever since that time, 9 sessions of the Working Group II were devoted to the discussions on such topic. The Arbitration Rules has been acknowledged to be used for settling international disputes involving various disputing parties. In recent years, many treaty-based arbitrations have been subject to the Arbitration Rules. This article focuses on the discussions made in the 52nd session of the Working Group II where the third reading of the revised draft of the Arbitration Rules was completed except for a few provisions. Among the draft rules, the delegations were hardly able to reach an agreement with regard to Articles 2(2), 34(2), 41(3), (4), and (6). It is expected that those provisions would be agreed in the coming 43rd plenary session of the UNCITRAL. The use of the Arbitration Rules is dependent on the agreement by the disputing parties. It is not like the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration which was adopted in Korean legal system in 1999. However, the proper functioning of arbitration rules is essential for the efficient and successful operation of the arbitration system in a particular country. That is the reason why we should keep close attention on the discussions of the UNCITRAL with regard to the revision of the Arbitration Rules.