International Commercial Arbitration: An Asia-Pacific Perspective, by Simon Greenberg, Christopher Kee & Romesh Weeramantry, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 2011, 543pp + xxxvii tables: ISBN 9780521695701. Softcover A$120.
This book provides a comprehensive and in-depth overview of the law and practice of international commercial arbitration. It is the first work written by Australian experts that offers “an Asia-Pacific perspective” on a field that has burgeoned particularly in Asia and world-wide since the 1990s, following significant liberalisation of cross-border trade and investment. The book’s focus is more on “Asia” than the “Pacific”. It concentrates especially on arbitration law and procedural rules in Australia (including, briefly, the July 2010 revisions to the International Arbitration Act), mainland China and Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines and Singapore, with reference also to Indonesia, Japan and the Republic of Korea. It also discusses developments in the United States, and to a lesser extent Canada, as well as in traditional “core” venues in Europe for international arbitration such as England and France.
After an “introduction to international arbitration and its place in the Asia-Pacific” (ch1), chapters cover all main areas of law relevant to drafting arbitration agreements, operating arbitration proceedings, and enforcing awards:
• “the law governing the arbitration and role of the seat” (ch2), “applicable substantive law” for the underlying disputes (ch3), formal and substantive requirements for the “arbitration agreement” itself (ch4);
• establishing or challenging “arbitral jurisdiction” (ch5), appointing or challenging “the arbitral tribunal” (ch6), “procedure and evidence” (ch7, including a helpful Table, at pp319-22, comparing approaches typically associated with civil law or common law traditions in civil procedure);
• “the award: content and form” (ch8) and its “challenge and enforcement” (ch9).
The book also adds a succinct introduction to “investment treaty arbitration” or investor-state arbitration (“ISA”: ch10). This is an increasingly important topic in the Asia-Pacific region – including Australia, where in April 2011 the “Gillard Government Trade Policy Statement” proclaimed that Australia would no longer include ISA in its investment treaties or Free Trade Agreements if this offered foreign investors more rights than local investors. This policy Statement reflects a recommendation of the Productivity Commission finalised last December, which I have criticised on this blog as well as on the East Asia Forum.
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