Originally from Emergency Relief in International Arbitration: Concept, Legal Framework, Standards, and Enforcement\

PREVIEW

1. Introduction  

Any respondent facing an emergency relief application will seek to identify laws applicable to the emergency proceedings and understand the legal framework within which the emergency proceedings operate. As demonstrated in this chapter, this is not a straightforward exercise. This is particularly because in international arbitration the legal framework consists of the arbitration law of the seat, arbitration rules, an arbitration agreement and the law of the place of enforcement. Unlike a court process that is usually governed by national procedural rules, the emergency proceedings are not governed by a single set of rules. Given the novelty of the concept, the arbitration laws (rightly or wrongly) seldom refer to the notion of  
an “emergency arbitrator” or “emergency proceedings”, leaving those seeking to use one with uncertainty about their application to the emergency proceedings.  

It appears that the emergency arbitrator procedure consists of technical and substantive elements, each of which can be further subdivided into internal and external matters. An example, of technical internal elements would be formal requirements and powers of a technical nature and an example of external matters would be rules relating to judicial interim relief and enforcement. The Substantive matters are matters that influence the outcome of the decision and include powers of the emergency arbitrator and applicable standards.