The 1958 New York Convention in Action

Marike Paulsson

Feb 2016 · Kluwer Law International B.V.

About this ebook

The 1958 New York Convention has been called the most effective instance of international legislation in the entire history of commercial law. However, the succinct text of the Convention leaves open a host of significant and complex questions, which may be, and have been, answered in a variety of ways; as difficult cases arise and demand solutions, they generate inconsistent outcomes. For all its remarkable success, the Convention has on occasion proved itself to be unreliable and unpredictable.

This book simultaneously exposes the difficulties of the Convention and explores potential solutions. It examines each substantive article of the New York Convention in accordance with the following outline:

• the text and its issues; • original intent; • the prism of the rules of interpretation of the Vienna Convention; • judicial outcomes; and • appraisal.

By drawing on the Convention's drafting history in great detail, the book presents a coherent account of how the most frequently recurring interrogations about the text are reflected (or not) in judicial practice. The author studied more than 1,700 decisions rendered under the Convention since its inception in 1958 in order to provide a succinct selection of landmark cases per article.

With its intense investigation of the complex reality underlying contracting States' commitment in principle and judicial application in fact, the author's judicial understanding of the Convention provides a clear conceptual framework that will help avoid outcomes at odds with the purposes of this important instrument. Lawyers and judges will rely on this book not only to situate the Convention in the national legal orders where it is intended to produce its effects, but also discover practical ways to respond to distinct questions of application.

About the author

Marike Paulsson is Director of the International Arbitration Institute and lecturer in law with the University of Miami School of Law, and a Consultant with Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP. Her prior professional experiences were with Hanotiau & van den Berg in Brussels, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Allen & Overy in Amsterdam. Her teaching is primarily focused on the New York Convention, international arbitration, and treaty interpretation. She has taught and guest lectured at Erasmus University in Rotterdam (The Netherlands), the University of Versailles (France), the American University in Washington DC (USA), the Royal University in Riffa (Kingdom of Bahrain) and KITT University in Bhubaneswar (India).She is a member of ICCA's judiciary committee and editor and co-author of ICCA's Guide to the Interpretation of the 1958 New York Convention. She has conducted structured dialogues with national court judges on international law and the New York Convention in the Middle East, Mauritius for the African Region, Latin America, India and the United States, and authored numerous publications on the subject.