Public Policy Issues in International Commercial Arbitration. A Comparative Analysis Between Ireland, Singapore, India and the United States of America

Abstract

In this dissertation, it was proven that there are issues that exist in international commercial arbitration under the ground of public policy which may be used to set aside or refuse enforcement of an arbitral award. Throughout analysing the differences of contracting States to either the UNCITRAL Model Law or the New York Convention it has been demonstrated that discrepancies between national and international legislation on the public policy ground can be detrimental to the independence of the arbitral tribunal and finality of the arbitral award. As Conventions aimed to harmonise and provide a uniform text that can be applied to both national and international Legislation on arbitration, the public policy ground remains subjective and inconsistent in areas such as the threshold and scope applied. It is clear that court intervention is disadvantageous to arbitration and the need for limitations is evident. Used as a means to allow court involvement in Countries with a weaker judicial system with regards to arbitration, public policy is used excessively to set aside or refuse enforcement of an arbitral award and in some cases decide on the merits. It will be shown that to successfully apply the New York Convention and the Model Law to arbitration, the grounds of public policy and arbitrability should be narrowly construed in accordance with the aim to harmonise and unify international commercial arbitration. By deviating from this aim, this dissertation demonstrated the issues that arise from this by way of broad interpretations and uncertain outcomes of awards.