Originally from: Soft Law in International Arbitration

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Introduction
Proper drafting of awards is of particular importance—the award is
of course the primary goal of an arbitration, and awards are the primary
object of interest in court actions following arbitration. More to the point,
courts will generally refrain from reviewing the evidence and related
materials underlying the award, as these are within the arbitrator’s often
unreviewable power to assess the factual dispute. Outside of
jurisdictional and due process issues, an arbitral award will live or die on
its own terms. Finally, once an award is issued, a tribunal is generally
functus officio and cannot revisit the award beyond addressing certain
clerical issues.1 Although there is some contrary national law,
participants to an arbitration should view the award as the final stage in
the arbitration process.2
All too often, however, the award is not the final stage in the dispute
between the parties. Contentious issues in awards may result in costly
litigation and, occasionally, in court-ordered remission, modification or
vacatur. No matter the result, litigation undoes the bargain the parties
struck when they agreed to arbitrate rather than litigate their disputes.
This section examines three sets of guidelines that are intended to
prevent these kinds of issues from arising. They aim to make awards
more comprehensive, clearer and likelier to withstand court review (and
thus to prevent such litigations in the first place).