International arbitration perhaps crosses more practical and theoretical boundaries than any other area of law. A practitioner must approach the field prepared to deal with aspects of national, international and conflicts laws, public and private law, and substantive and procedural law. Crucial issues involve policy matters as well as the layers of national and international regulation of the arbitral process. There are also special considerations to be taken into account in the presence of state parties and of third parties. In a three-day symposium held at the School of International Arbitration, Centre for Commercial Law Studies (CCLS), Queen Mary University of London, on the occasion of its twentieth anniversary in April 2005, a stellar array of practitioners and academics undertook the task of taking a fresh look at some of the persistent legal and practice issues of international arbitration. The conference - and this book derived from it - illustrate the combination of the scholarly and the highly practical which has characterised the mission of the School of International Arbitration since its establishment in 1985. These insightful papers demonstrate not only the increasing breadth and scope of the subject, but also the way in which many of its themes and issues cross legal and disciplinary boundaries and pose questions for the future of the law and arbitration practice in an internationalised world. These include: public policy; mandatory rules; confidentiality; provisional measures; res judicata; costs; amicus briefs; groups of companies; parallel proceedings; and anti-suit injunctions. Contributors focus on topics and countries with which they have particular expertise or experience. Both international commercial and international investment arbitration are covered. This important book will be of great interest to arbitration lawyers, international lawyers and business people, as well as to academics, libraries, and students of dispute resolution.

It often seems today that no dispute is barred from resolution by arbitration. Even the fundamental question of whether a dispute falls under the exclusive jurisdiction of a judicial body may itself be arbitrable. Arbitrability is thus an elusive concept; yet a systematic study of it, as this book shows, yields innumerable guidelines and insights that are of substantial value to arbitral practice. Although the book takes the form of a collection of essays, it is designed as a comprehensive commentary on practical issues that emerge from the idea of arbitrability. Fifteen leading academics and practitioners from Europe and the United States each explore different facets of arbitrability always with a perspective open to international developments and comparative evaluation of standards. The presentation falls into two parts: in the first the focus is on the general features of arbitrability, its rationale and the laws applicable to it. In the second, arbitrability is specifically examined in the context of administrative, criminal, corporate, IP, financial, commercial, and criminal law This book has its origins in an International Conference on Arbitrability held at Athens in September 2005. Seven papers presented there are here reviewed and updated, and nine others are added. The subject of the book - arbitrability - is one that is much talked about, but seldom if ever given the in-depth treatment presented here. Arbitrators and other practitioners in the field will welcome the way the analysis moves logically from theory to practice regarding every issue, and academics will recognize a definitive treatment of arbitrability as understood and applied in the settlement of disputes today.

Recent constitutional thinking has directed its attention to the profound impact of soft norms on the way legislation is made. This book identifies the European Union's impact assessment regime as a source of these norms. In 2002, the European Commission, later followed by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers, committed to performing rigorous assessment of the economic, social and environmental impacts of policy options before adopting (legislative) proposals. Applying a constitutional lens to this regulatory topic, Anne Meuwese examines both the details and the framework of IA in EU lawmaking to date, drawing attention to its strengths, its contradictions, and its power to enhance the deliberative quality of legislative debates. Integrating the perspectives of political scientists and economists with the concerns of legal scholars and practitioners, Dr Meuwese describes and interrelates such aspects of the subject as the following: the potential role of impact assessment as a catalyst of legal principles, by emphasising or overriding norms that govern both the procedural and the substantive aspects of the EU legislative process; the constitutional tasks of impact assessment as applied to European legislative proposals, especially relating to subsidiarity, proportionality, and the precautionary principle; the formal and informal extension of the scope of impact assessment beyond the co-decision procedure; the question whether impact assessment crosses the line between informing the legislator and fettering legislative discretion.In the course of her analysis, Dr Meuwese develops models for possible usages of IA in EU lawmaking, analyses the implementation of impact assessment processes in the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council as well as the roles of relevant co-actors, and offers results of empirical research in the forms of a survey of EU legislative practice and in-depth case studies of four EU legislative dossiers. "Impact Assessment in EU Lawmaking" is a significant milestone in a number of emerging legal debates around Europe's constitutional future, accountability regimes, meta-regulation, and the growing awareness of de facto binding norms. Its vital implications reach far into the future, not only for EU legislation but for the entire field of constitutional law as it adapts to prevailing structures of public power everywhere.

Since its establishment in 1986, the annual "Freshfields Arbitration Lecture" (as it has come to be known) has given both practitioners and academics a unique and extraordinary opportunity to explore new insights and frontiers in the theory and practice of international arbitration. Hosted by the School of International Arbitration, Queen Mary University of London, each lecture provides an eminent figure in international arbitration a platform on which to investigate problems of interest on aspects and trends in the field. Bringing together all the published (and some unpublished) lectures in this important series, this valuable book confirms the interaction between theory and practice that the School has pursued since its inauguration, and provides in addition a remarkable testament of the School's policy of ensuring a comparative and international approach to international arbitration research and study. Twenty-one leading academics and practitioners explore the issues of States and state enterprises in arbitration, including the following topics: international investment arbitration; national regulation of arbitration with particular focus on the English Arbitration Act, the UNCITRAL Model Law, and Latin America; arbitration proceedings (including the problem of delays and control of the arbitral process); availability of remedies (Farnsworth 1990); efficiency of arbitration process; and the impact of rules of law and national law on arbitration tribunals and the arbitration process. The book also includes substantial coverage of such fundamental and more recent themes as default procedural rules, autonomy of the arbitration process, regulation of arbitration in national laws, validity of arbitral awards, and dissenting opinions. Several of the lectures have been augmented with updates and endnotes, and an in-depth introduction supplies a welcome overview. With contributions by some of today's leading academics and practitioners in the field, this book will be of great interest to arbitration lawyers, international lawyers, and business people, as well as to academics, law libraries, and students of dispute resolution.

The second edition of this seminal text provides an authoritative 'article-by-article' commentary on the CISG. Moreover, it goes further than existing literature by taking account of those various legal settings in which the CISG operates. Strictly following the structure of the Convention itself, it examines specific topics such as E-Commerce and the CISG and comparative texts such as Unidroit Principles of International Commercial Contracts and the European Principles of Contract Law. The Incoterms are also dealt with in detail. With a truly global and stellar line up of contributors, this is an invaluable tool for all lawyers practising in the field.