INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION

3 definitions found across Law Mind sources

← Dictionary
See encyclopedia: International Contracts -- International Arbitration (New York Convention, ICSID) →
INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATIONAuthored
The Law Mind • 1397 words
Definition
International arbitration is a method of resolving disputes between parties from different countries — or disputes involving cross-border transactions, investments, or sovereign interests — through a private adjudicative process rather than litigation in a national court. A neutral third party (or panel) is empowered by agreement to issue a binding decision, called an award, which the parties commit in advance to honor. The term encompasses two distinct contexts that are related but governed by different legal frameworks: 1. Commercial international arbitration. Disputes between private parties — corporations, traders, investors — arising from international contracts, joint ventures, or commercial relationships. Governed primarily by the parties' arbitration agreement, the rules of the chosen arbitral institution (such as the ICC, LCIA, AAA/ICDR, or SIAC), and enforced through the 1958 New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, to which over 170 states are signatories. 2. Investment arbitration (investor-state). Disputes between a foreign investor and a host state, typically arising from alleged violations of bilateral investment treaties (BITs), multilateral treaties such as the Energy Charter Treaty, or investment chapters of free trade agreements. The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), established by the Washington Convention of 1965, provides the primary institutional framework, though UNCITRAL rules are also commonly used in this context. A third, older meaning — state-to-state arbitration — refers to the resolution of disputes between sovereign nations through agreed arbitral panels, a practice with roots in the 19th century that predates the modern commercial framework. ---
Common Confusion
International arbitration is frequently conflated with domestic arbitration, but the two operate under fundamentally different legal regimes. Domestic arbitration in the United States is governed primarily by the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) Chapter 1; international arbitration under the New York Convention is governed by FAA Chapter 2 (and Chapter 3 for Panama Convention matters). The distinction controls enforcement procedures, grounds for vacatur, and which courts have jurisdiction. Similarly, researchers sometimes conflate international commercial arbitration with investor-state arbitration — the parties, treaties, procedural rules, available remedies, and enforcement mechanisms differ substantially between the two. ---
Core Elements
For international commercial arbitration to be valid and enforceable, the following elements are generally required: Agreement to arbitrate. A written arbitration clause in the underlying contract or a separate submission agreement. The New York Convention requires the agreement to be in writing, though modern conventions and domestic laws interpret "writing" broadly. International character. Most frameworks define a dispute as international when the parties have their places of business in different states, the place of performance is abroad, or the subject matter has cross-border connections. The UNCITRAL Model Law Article 1(3) provides the dominant definition. Seat (place) of arbitration. The legal domicile of the arbitration, which determines the procedural law governing the proceedings and the national courts with supervisory jurisdiction. The seat is distinct from the physical location where hearings occur. Arbitral award. The final decision on the merits, which must be in writing and signed by the arbitrators. An award made in a New York Convention signatory state is enforceable in all other signatory states subject to limited grounds for refusal. Grounds for refusal of enforcement. Under Article V of the New York Convention, enforcement may be refused on narrow grounds: incapacity of the parties, invalid agreement, denial of due process, award beyond the scope of submission, improper tribunal composition, award not yet binding, or violation of public policy of the enforcing state. ---
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers navigating the Law Mind corpus will encounter international arbitration across multiple encyclopedias — contracts, civil procedure, and admiralty — because no single body of law governs the field. The framework is layered: international conventions (New York, ICSID/Washington, Panama), domestic implementing statutes (FAA Chapters 2 and 3 in the United States), institutional rules (ICC, LCIA, ICSID, UNCITRAL), and the lex arbitri of the seat. Each layer can be the dispositive source depending on the issue. A significant trap in historical sources: pre-1958 materials discuss international arbitration almost exclusively in the state-to-state or diplomatic sense. The New York Convention transformed the field by creating a universal enforcement regime for private commercial awards. Sources predating the Convention — including Bouvier's — treat arbitration as primarily a diplomatic or treaty mechanism, which bears little resemblance to how practitioners use the term today. Researchers relying on 19th or early 20th century dictionary definitions will find the commercial enforcement dimension entirely absent. Investment arbitration (investor-state) developed largely after 1965 and accelerated sharply in the 1990s with the proliferation of BITs and NAFTA Chapter 11. It does not appear in any historical dictionary source in the Law Mind corpus. Researchers working in this area must start with treaty texts, ICSID tribunal decisions, and UNCITRAL working documents rather than common law or equity sources. Jurisdictional variation in U.S. courts is also significant: circuit splits exist on questions such as whether courts or arbitrators decide gateway issues of arbitrability under international agreements, and whether the manifest disregard standard applies to international awards. See civpro_127 for procedural mapping. Maritime arbitration — particularly New York arbitration in shipping disputes and London arbitration under LMAA terms — forms a specialized subfield with its own institutional customs. See military_57 for the admiralty-specific context. ---
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary addresses international arbitration only in passing and only in its state-to-state diplomatic form. The excerpts preserved in the Law Mind corpus reference arbitration as a mechanism of peaceful dispute resolution between nations — citing the proposition that differences between states ought, when possible, to be referred to "arbitration of commissioners appointed on each side or by that of a friendly nation," with the obligation to accede unless the nature of the dispute made this altogether incompatible. This is recognizably the tradition of 19th-century public international law arbitration, exemplified by the Alabama Claims arbitration of 1872. Bouvier makes no reference to commercial arbitration as an enforcement tool for private cross-border disputes, which is unsurprising: the New York Convention did not exist, no multilateral enforcement regime existed, and private international commercial arbitration had not yet developed the institutional infrastructure it now possesses. The entry on labor arbitration — also referenced in the corpus — reflects a domestic context and is not analytically continuous with international commercial or investment arbitration. Historical dictionaries as a class are unhelpful here for researchers seeking the modern doctrinal framework. The field is largely post-1958 in its current form and almost entirely post-1965 for investor-state matters. The significant scholarly and doctrinal development occurred through international conventions, model laws (the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration, first adopted 1985), and the case law of arbitral tribunals — none of which appear in classic law dictionary sources. ---
Jurisdictional Note
Enforcement of international arbitral awards in U.S. federal courts proceeds under FAA Chapter 2 (New York Convention) or Chapter 3 (Inter-American/Panama Convention), not Chapter 1. Grounds for vacatur are narrower than for domestic awards, and subject-matter jurisdiction lies in federal district courts regardless of the citizenship of the parties. ICSID awards occupy a distinct category: under the ICSID Convention, member states are obligated to treat an ICSID award as a final judgment of their own courts, bypassing the New York Convention enforcement procedure entirely. ---
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
contracts_209: International Contracts — International Arbitration (New York Convention, ICSID) — Primary reference for the commercial and investment treaty framework, arbitration clauses in international contracts, and enforcement doctrine. civpro_127: International Arbitration — New York Convention and Chapter 2 of the FAA — Procedural mapping for U.S. federal court enforcement, arbitrability doctrine, and the domestic-international distinction under the FAA. military_57: Maritime Arbitration — New York Arbitration, London Arbitration, and International Conventions — Specialized reference for shipping, admiralty, and maritime trade dispute arbitration. ---
Related Terms
Arbitration | Arbitral Award | Arbitral Tribunal | Seat of Arbitration | Lex Arbitri | New York Convention | ICSID | Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) | Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) | UNCITRAL Model Law | FAA (Federal Arbitration Act) | Enforcement of Foreign Judgments | Forum Selection Clause | Choice of Law | Maritime Arbitration | Mediation | Conciliation | Diplomatic Settlement
INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATIONmain
Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928
For arbritation of labor disputes, see
INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATIONmain
Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928
of peace and good neighborship, whether it would not be better that such difference should be settled by the arbitration of commissioners appointed on each side or by that of a friendly nation. And should such course be proposed by either party, it shall be acceded to by the other, unless deemed by it altogether incompatible with the nature of the difference, or the circumstances of the case." There have been three arbitrations between the United States and Haiti, one under a protocol May 24, 1884, by which two claims against Haiti were re- ferred to Mr. Justice Strong of the supreme court of the United States. His awards were adverse to Haiti, but the United States has thus far declined to enforce them. On March 7, 1885, there was an agreement for a mixed commission of two Amer- icans and two Haitiens to adjust the claims of citizens of the United States growing out of civil disturbances in the island. Under the protocol of May 22, 1888, Alexander Porter Morse, of Washing- ton, was named as an arbitrator to consider the claim for damages on the part of Van Bokkelen, a United States citizen, who was imprisoned in Haiti for debt. A commission was appointed between the United States and Venezuela under a convention of January 19, 1892, to settle the claims of an American steam- ship company for the seizure of its steamers on the Orinoco. Three mixed commissions have been appointed under treaty with Colombia, the first and second under conventions concluded September 10th, 1857, and February 10th, 1864, covering rights under the treaty with New Granada of 1846. The third, August 17, 1874, for an award for the capture of the American steamer Montijo by insurgents in the State of Panama. Two commissions have sat for the adjustment of miscellaneous claims under con- ventions of January 12, 1863, and December 4, 1868, one with Costa Rica under the Treaty of July 2 1860, and one with Ecuador under the Treaty of November 25, 1862. Under a convention with Peru, December 20, 1862, claims against Peru for the seizure of two vessels were referred to the King of the Belgians, but they were afterwards withdrawn. By a convention of February 4, 1859, the claims of the United States against Paraguay were referred to a commission composed of a representative of each government. The decision was against the claim, but the United States have repudiated the award and endeavored to settle it by negotiation. The questions between the United States and Portugal arising out of the destruction of the Amer- ican privateer General Armstrong in the port of Fayal, were referred to Louis Napoleon under the Treaty of February 26, 1851 The award was ad- verse to the claim. After an attempt on the part of the claimants to set it aside the United States paid the claim out of its own treasury. Another arbitration between the United States and Portugal under a protocol signed June 18, 1891, to which Great Britain is also a party, in relation to the seizure of the Delagoa Bay railway, is now pending. The United States and Chile by the convention of November 10, 1858, referred to the King of the Belgians a claim growing gro out of the seizure of the American brig Macedonian by the Chilean navy. An award was made, 1863, in favor of the United States. Under the Treaty of August 7, 1892, these two nations provided for a general arbitration of claims by means of a mixed commission. In 1890, the congress of the United States adopted a concurrent resolution requesting the president to invite negotiations to the end that differences aris- ing between it and other governments may be re- ferred to arbitration and possibly adjusted. On July 16, 1898, the British House of Commons adopted a resolution referring in terms to the above resolu- tion of congress and expressing the sympathy of that house with its purpose and asking the British government to co-operate with the government of the United States. The Institute of International Law, at its session in 1874 and 1875, discussed the subject of rules for the procedure of international tribunals of arbitra- tion, and at the latter meeting adopted provisional rules. At the International American Conference held on April 8, 1890, and attended by delegates from North, Central, and South America, the plan of a permanent tribunal of arbitration was adopted. Proposed rules for the International Tribunal of Arbitration were submitted by William Allen Butler to the Universal Peace Congress in Chicago in 1898. In 1889, certain members of the British and French Parliaments formed at Paris a parliamentary union to be composed of members of the legislative as- semblies of various countries for the purpose of considering the development of international arbi- tration. At its session at Brussels in 1895, it adopted certain provisions which it recommended to the consideration of the governments of civilized states. A conference of a number of prominent men was held at Washington, April 22 and 23, 1806, for the purpose of f

Explore the full Law Mind legal research platform.

SubscribeEncyclopediaSign In
The Law Mind Legal Dictionary. This is a legal research library, not a lawyer.
Dictionary • Encyclopedia • Sign In