Originally from American Review of International Arbitration - ARIA

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I. INTRODUCTION

1. International arbitration has fundamentally changed during the last decade. For the purpose of this article, it is worth pointing out the three major features of this development

a. First, the number of cases submitted to international arbitration is continuously increasing.[1] What was once a method of dispute resolution restricted to a limited number of large international cases, has become for various reasons a major player in international litigation. International arbitration is developing not only in Western Europe, but also in Eastern Europe, in Asia and in North America.

Many countries have recently adopted new laws to facilitate the recourse to international arbitration and more than 100 of them have adopted the famous New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards.[2] Arbitration is developing not only in the context of traditional international institutions, but also the number of ad hoc cases is increasing considerably, particularly in the context of the so-called UNCITRAL rules.[3]