Emergency Relief Pending Arbitration in the US Context - Chapter 15 - Interim and Emergency Relief in International Arbitration - International Law Institute Series on International Law, Arbitration and Practice

Author(s):

Kassi D. Tallent

Page Count:

26 pages

Published:

May, 2015

PDF728.49 KB

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Description:

Originally from Interim and Emergency Relief in International Arbitration - International Law Institute Series on International Law, Arbitration and Practice

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I. INTRODUCTION

When commercial disputes arise, parties occasionally need to seek

measures to ensure that the interests they have at stake will be preserved or

protected pending the dispute’s resolution. Thus, most if not all legal

systems provide for various forms of judicial relief pendente lite (known

variously as interim, provisional, interlocutory or conservatory measures),

including, for example, injunctions and orders for the attachment or freezing

of assets. The availability of such measures of relief is consistent with the

general principle of law whereby the parties to a dispute resolution

proceeding should abstain from any conduct that could prejudice the

execution of the eventual decision.1 Interim measures are distinguishable

from the procedural directives that may be issued during the course of such

proceedings, inasmuch as they typically involve determinations concerning

the substance of one or more of the claims at issue.

Despite the importance of interim measures of relief in the dispute

resolution context, it has not always been clear whether such measures can

be effectively obtained from an arbitral tribunal.2 This matter has gained

in significance as arbitration has come to play an increasingly important

role in the administration of justice in commercial disputes around the

world. Thus, numerous efforts have been made over the past two decades

aimed at enhancing the availability and enforceability of arbitral interim

measures. In recent years, many of these reforms have specifically focused

on ensuring that arbitral relief is available during the (often lengthy)

period after a dispute has arisen, but before there is an arbitral tribunal in
place to hear that dispute. The result has been the development of a new