Author Description

The many and varied recent developments in the field of international commercial arbitration are once again brought together in this Volume of 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. 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.