Originally from A Practical Guide to International Arbitration - Second Edition 

Preview Page

INTRODUCTION 

Most arbitral awards are complied with voluntarily.  However, if the losing party to an arbitration fails to comply voluntarily with the arbitral award, the winning party may need to take steps to enforce performance of it.  Enforcement of international arbitral awards is greatly facilitated by the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (“New York Convention”), which has been adopted by the vast majority of countries in the world. The New York Convention requires each Contracting State to recognize and enforce international arbitral awards, and provides that domestic courts only may refuse recognition or enforcement on limited grounds.

An arbitral award may be set aside by the domestic courts in the country where the award was made. The grounds for setting aside an arbitral award are provided for in domestic law and thus vary by jurisdiction.  While atypical, domestic courts in some jurisdictions have enforced arbitral awards notwithstanding that the awards have been set aside elsewhere.

A. The New York Convention 

The New York Convention is a multilateral treaty resulting from a United Nations conference on international commercial arbitration in 1958. It represented a watershed moment that has paved the way for the proliferation of international arbitration as a universally accepted disputed resolution method. The treaty establishes a “pro-enforcement” approach requiring Contracting States to recognize and enforce “foreign” arbitral awards, i.e., awards made in the territory of another State, subject to a limited list of agreed-upon exceptions. As of the date of publication, there are 172 Contracting States to the New York Convention.

Most Contracting States have implemented the New York Convention in their domestic arbitration statutes.