International Commercial Arbitration

Module code: LW7153

This module examines the main theories and practices of international commercial arbitration from a theoretical and comparative perspective. International commercial arbitration is de facto the most prominently used means of dispute settlement in transnational commercial disputes. Businesses prefer to use international commercial arbitration rather than embark in long court proceedings in an attempt to obtain quick and final decisions on their disputes, choosing their own arbitrators, the applicable law and the seat of arbitration and maximising the autonomy that arbitration, unlike domestic courts, offers to parties to a commercial dispute. 

The module provides an overview of all the different stages of the arbitral proceedings, from the drafting of the arbitration agreement to the actual proceedings, finally analysing how to enforce an arbitral award that, not having been rendered by a national court, is not always automatically enforceable. The UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration will be used as a point of reference for the discussion of most topics as it is the model upon which most of the arbitration laws worldwide have been shaped.