Dr Paul MacMahon

This course is available on the LLM (extended part-time), LLM (full-time) and University of Pennsylvania Law School LLM Visiting Students. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

This course has a limited number of places and demand is typically high. This may mean that you’re not able to get a place on this course.

Arbitration — binding adjudication outside the courts generally deriving its authority from party consent — is a standard way of resolving international commercial disputes. Supporters of international arbitration cite its neutrality, its confidentiality, its flexibility, the greater expertise of arbitrators, and the global enforceability of arbitral awards under the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Arbitral Awards. To detractors, however, international commercial arbitration is often expensive and slow. Other critics contend, more fundamentally, that arbitration infringes the spheres appropriately occupied by national courts and national law. Regardless, the complex relationship between arbitrators and courts, especially when combined with transnational elements, raises a host of fascinating theoretical and practical problems.

In addition to the New York Convention, this course consistently covers the widely adopted UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration, together with England’s and France’s distinctive approaches to the subject. Where appropriate, the course draws on legislation and case law from other jurisdictions, including Switzerland and the United States. Coverage includes:

• Legal framework of international commercial arbitration

• Scope and validity of arbitration agreements

• Conflicts of laws and the arbitration agreement

• Challenges to arbitral jurisdiction

• Appointment of arbitrators

• Arbitral procedure

• Law applicable to the merits of the dispute

• Challenges to arbitral awards

• Recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards

• Public policy limitations on international commercial arbitration

This course concentrates on arbitration resulting from agreements between private parties and may particularly appeal to students with interests in contracts and private international law. Considerations specific to states and state-owned enterprises as parties to arbitration are left to LL4C6 International Arbitration, which complements this course and offers a perspective on all forms of international arbitration.

20 hours of contact time in Autumn Term with a Reading Week in Week 6. 2 additional hours in Spring Term.

One 2,000 word essay.

Nigel Blackaby & Constantine Partasides, Redfern and Hunter on International Commercial Arbitration (7th edn, OUP 2022); Gary Born, International Commercial Arbitration (3rd edn, Kluwer 2021); Emmanuel Gaillard, Legal Theory of International Arbitration (Brill Nijhoff 2012); Jan Paulsson, The Idea of Arbitration (OUP 2013); Jan Kleinheisterkamp, 'Overriding Mandatory Laws in International Arbitration' (2018) 67 ICLQ 903

Exam (100%, duration: 2 hours and 30 minutes) in the spring exam period.