Improve legislation Strengthen the rule of law

Author: Yang Rongxin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-09-01
Features: In recent years, with economic development and increased exchanges, many parties in civil and economic disputes have been willing to resolve their conflicts through arbitration. Resolving disputes through arbitration has many advantages and benefits; however, the legal framework governing arbitration—Arbitration Law—is relatively simple and also contains some inconsistencies, which have been discussed in seminars and academic papers. For example, the issue of judicial supervision over arbitration. According to the current Arbitration Law, there are two ways to exercise judicial supervision over arbitration: refusing to enforce arbitration awards and revoking arbitration awards. Setting aside these aspects, the provisions are not yet complete or refined, making them difficult to implement in practice. From the perspective of institutional design, refusing to enforce arbitration awards could be entirely included within the revocation of arbitration awards. If an award is revoked, there would naturally be no issue of enforcement. According to the Arbitration Law, the conditions for refusing to enforce or revoking arbitration awards are fundamentally the same, and in special provisions for foreign-related arbitration, they are identical, both citing the same article, but the courts with jurisdiction differ. Due to these legislative reasons, many issues have arisen in practice. Some parties first apply for refusal to enforce in one court, and if unsuccessful, they apply for revocation in another. In some cases, different parties apply for refusal to enforce and revocation for the same case, leading to unnecessary confusion. Regarding these issues, experts and scholars attending the conference agreed in their speeches and papers that they should be addressed when revising the Arbitration Law. In summary, the call to revise the Civil Procedure Law and Arbitration Law has been issued, and steps have already been taken. We hope to present this small book as a stepping stone to inspire further discussion among colleagues in academia and practice. We welcome criticism and suggestions and look forward to working together to successfully fulfill the historical mission of revising these two laws.