Thanks to Shearman & Sterling, UNCITRAL and Columbia Law School there is new freely accessible database online with domestic court cases considering the application and interpretation of the New York Convention.
Jurisdictions represented among the current decisions (always in the original language, sometimes with an English translation) include:
- Africa – OHADA participants
- Australia
- Brazil
- Canada
- China
- Colombia
- Egypt
- France
- Germany
- Hong Kong
- India
- Russian Federation
- Switzerland
- UK
- United States
The database is expected to continue to grow in both depth and width.
Renaud Sorieul, UNCITRAL secretary, says: “UNCITRAL welcomes the aspiration … to offer the public something more than a static depiction of national case law on the New York Convention at a given time. It is hoped that through frequent and systematic updates the website will reflect judicial practice on the New York Convention as it continues to evolve”.
Home page
The quick search screen means you can search quickly by jurisdiction and Applicable NYC provisions.
I am not entirely confident that the Advanced Search facility is working properly yet – some of the options in the drop down menu don’t yet seem to “stick” for example when I try to set it to Case name, what appears is Court.
Browsing case law by jurisdiction is quick and simple – the Jurisdictions link gives you a drop down menu, pick for example, Egypt. The first result is a useful historical summary of that country’s ratification of the Convention, and indication of which court(s) deal with enforcement of foreign arbitration.
Egypt’s relationship with the Convention
At the foot Link to Case Law which delivers this:
Case law from Egyptian court
Clicking on the + sign to the left of the case details reveals a summary in English, clicking on the green tree? icon at the other end gives the full decision in the vernacular.
This site should not be confused with the one called New York Arbitration Convention (that is without the date) which is only partially freely accessible (OU does not have a login). But it does have useful material and links for the visitor, and works as an index (at least when you are within the OU network) to the cases on our KluwerArbitration subscription.
Our print copies of the Yearbook Commercial Arbitration are at Private Int 300 Y20
