A Legislative Comparative Assessment of Challenging Arbitral Awards Under UNCITRAL Model Law: A New Harmonised Proposed Model for Challenging Arbitral Awards

Abstract

The issue of challenging arbitral awards is anaylsed in this thesis due to its fundamental and somewhat controversial nature within the field arbitration. This is because such an issue is an unavoidable necessity and is, at the same time, a source of difficulty that may jeopardise the principles and advantages of arbitration. Therefore, this thesis provides an examination of all the aspects related to the given issue. This examination is based on content analysis of over one hundred national arbitration legislations on the one hand and based on an in-depth analysis of the arbitration legislations and the jurisdictions (law cases) of Egypt, England and Jordan in light of the UNCITRAL Model Law (ML) on the other hand. Based on the arguments and the findings of this examination, the thesis will propose a model to harmonise the grounds related to the issue of challenging arbitral awards, including both the prerequisite grounds and legal grounds, in the same manner in which the New York Convention (NYC) attempted to harmonise the grounds for the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. It is argued that the model proposed by the thesis is an attempt to highlight and emphasise the somewhat quasi-universal consensus in the wide spectrum of the legislations examined in the context of challenging arbitral awards. Therefore, it is expected that the comprehensiveness of the grounds for challenging arbitral awards in the proposed model and the rationales provided for the inclusion of each of these grounds will be convincing enough for as many countries as possible to ratify the proposed model when it is presented before them as an international convention. Indeed, the feasibility of enacting the proposed model as an international convention would not only be possible but would be very high. The enactment of such an international convention would encourage standardising the practices of national courts globally when addressing any challenges to arbitral awards. This in turn could minimise the chances of annulling arbitral awards due to local particularities and, therefore, safeguard the integrity of international arbitration as an international dispute resolution mechanism.

Date of Award	31 Dec 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	Jasem Tarawneh (Supervisor) & Nicolette Butler (Supervisor)