Originally from American Review of International Arbitration - ARIA

Preview Page

ENFORCEMENT OF FOREIGN ARBITRAL AWARDS:
OBSERVATIONS ON THE EFFICIENCY OF THE CURRENT
SYSTEM AND THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF
ALTERNATIVE MEANS OF ENFORCEMENT
Stavros Brekoulakis*

I. INTRODUCTION

A. Scope of this Article

It was May 1958 when Professor Sanders inspiringly drafted within a
weekend the famous "Dutch proposal" on a small portable typewriter at the house
of his father-in-law in a suburb of New York.1 This proposal was presented the
following Monday to the United Nations Conference on International Commercial
Arbitration,2 and it provided the basis for the United Nations Convention on the
Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (the "New York
Convention"), signed in New York on June 10, 1958.3

Not even Professor Sanders at that time could have foreseen that fifty years
later the New York Convention would have attracted 144 signatory states and that
it would become one of the most successful and celebrated conventions in the
history of international law.4

The New York Convention has never ceased to fascinate the arbitration
community and it still remains at the epicenter of the discussion concerning the
enforcement of foreign arbitral awards.5 Its strong academic appeal was evidenced
by the numerous events, seminars and conferences dedicated to it in 2008, the
year of its 50th anniversary.6

It was within this festive context that the School of International Arbitration
("SIA") of Queen Mary University of London conducted its second empirical
survey, sponsored by PricewaterhouseCoopers, on International Arbitration –
Corporate Attitudes and Practices, this time focusing on the Recognition and
Enforcement of Arbitral Awards and Settlement in International Arbitration (the
"Survey").7

The Survey canvasses the attitudes and practices of corporations with regard
to the recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards, focusing more on the
effectiveness of the actual enforcement system of arbitral awards than on the New
York Convention as such. Thus, it is essential at the outset to distinguish between
the enforcement framework set out in the New York Convention, and the actual
enforcement or execution system of arbitral awards determined by national
legislation.