Originally from International Arbitration Checklists - 3rd Edition

Unlike litigation, the arbitration process usually offers no clear-cut route to review or to appeal against an arbitration award.  It is often difficult for the dissatisfied party in an international arbitration to make a successful challenge to the award.  As will be seen, the arbitration rules most commonly adopted by the parties for the purposes of international arbitration explicitly exclude any form of recourse which might otherwise be available under the domestic rules of the country where the arbitration is conducted.  

This chapter addresses the options available to the losing party to take active steps to improve its position.  These include correcting inaccuracies in the award, getting the tribunal to make a decision on matters overlooked in the award and making an application to set aside or invalidate the award either in part or in its entirety.  These measures involve the unsuccessful party taking the initiative shortly after the award has been received.  Some of the matters discussed in this chapter overlap with Chapter 17 which deals with the enforcement of arbitration awards and the steps that may be taken to resist enforcement.  This is because the grounds for resisting the enforcement of an award under Article V of the New York Convention which are typically used defensively by the losing party overlap with the grounds available to the losing party to make an application to challenge the award.  

The two processes, challenging an award and resisting enforcement, usually (but not necessarily) take place at different points in time.  As will be seen, a challenge is normally made either to the arbitral tribunal or to the courts of the place where the arbitration took place.  Enforcement of an award under the New York Convention usually takes place in courts other than the place where the arbitration took place.   For these reasons, and because the grounds for a challenge extend beyond the grounds in Article V of the New York Convention, these two related aspects of the arbitration process are dealt with separately and should be the subject of a separate checking process.