Yearbook Commercial Arbitration Volume XXIVa - 1999

The many and varied recent developments in the field of international commercial arbitration in 1999, are brought together in this volume of the Yearbook Commercial Arbitration. As in previous volumes, the accent lies on cases in the form of arbitral awards and court decisions, 80 in total. They are selected for inclusion for their general interest and relevance to international practice, presented in a uniform style and translated into English from Arabic, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Swedish and Spanish, as the case may be. The selection of arbitral awards covers a broad spectrum of commercial sectors: finance, maritime, commodities and manufacturing, as well as a variety of contract types such as consultancy, distributorship, foreign investment and sales. The awards also examine many aspects of procedure such as assignment and succession, jurisdiction, determination of the applicable law (including lex mercatoria), interim measures and the powers of arbitrators. ICSID, ICC and Iran-US Claims Tribunal awards are included as well as awards from German, Italian, Japanese and Russian arbitral institutions. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has a place in the Yearbook for the first time in the form of a Decision on the place of arbitration and Award on jurisdiction by an ad hoc tribunal constituted under this Agreement and applying the UNCITRAL Rules. Prominence is given to the reporting on the 1958 New York Convention where 42 decisions from 15 jurisdictions comprising 13 countries, the Court of Justice of the European Communities and the Full Tribunal of the Iran-US Claims Tribunal are included. Common themes are the requirement of an arbitration agreement in writing, the binding effect of arbitral awards, the role of EU procedural and substantive law in arbitration, procedural flaws in the arbitration which may constitute a violation of public policy, sovereign immunity, and the balance of interests between finality of awards and the illegality of the underlying contract. Several decisions applying the 1961 European Convention and the 1975 Panama Convention are also published. The Yearbook additionally publishes a selection of leading court decisions from various countries which will impact arbitration practice in general. This year's selection includes decisions for eight countries and the Court of Justice of the European Communities on such topics as interim measures, the role of EU law, confidentiality, public policy and illegality, and "unconscionable" arbitral clauses. Other features of the Yearbook are the newest rules from the American Arbitration Association (AAA), the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC) and the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce (SCC) and the recently amended Supplementary Rules Governing the Taking of Evidence in International Commercial Arbitration of the International Bar Association with an Introduction by David Rivkin. New or amended arbitration legislation is announced in Recent Developments in Arbitration Law and Practice, with references to the Yearbook's sister publication, the International Handbook on Commercial Arbitration, where the full text of the legislation will be published in English, along with a National Report setting out the law and practice of arbitration in that country. The Yearbook also provides a Bibliography, listing journals and announcing the newest publications in the field of arbitration, including ADR.