Harmonisation of procedural law in international commercial arbitration

Abstract

The principle of party autonomy is widely accepted in the practice of international commercial arbitration. However, it still encounters certain limitations in its applications, especially for the fact that the demands of natural justice and the public good cannot be neglected by the parties. The various states in the international system have and operate peculiar systems of mandatory rules and public policies, which tend to impart significantly on the arbitral procedure, thereby creating a situation of discordance of outcomes of arbitration in different countries. For this reason, this writer intends to examine ways by which the various procedural laws can actually be harmonised. This thesis shall therefore focus on the discordances and confusion that often arise in the interacion of the various laws that may be applicable to the arbitral process in International commercial arbitration, as well as ways of achieving a harmonisation of these laws.