UNCITRAL Colloquium on the Recognition and Enforcement of Electronic Arbitral Awards

Dates: 1 October (Tuesday) to 2 October 2024 (Wednesday)
Venue: Vienna International Center (VIC), Vienna; Boardroom D
Time: 9:30 – 12:30; 14:00 – 17:00 Vienna time (CEST/UTC+2)

At its fifty-seventh session, the Commission mandated Working Group II to work on the recognition and enforcement of electronic arbitral awards and, subsequently, on electronic notices of arbitration. In this regard, the Commission provided the Working Group with a broad mandate to identify the issues and explore appropriate solutions to address those issues without prejudice to the final form of the outcome. Hence, the Commission requested that the Secretariat organize a two-day colloquium during the eightieth session of the Working Group to further assess the issues with respect to the use of electronic awards.

The UNCITRAL Colloquium consists of four panels:

• Panel 1 will discuss issues related to electronic awards from the perspectives of arbitral institutions.
• Panel 2 will discuss the experience of digitalization in national court proceedings, focusing on the electronic rendering and enforcement of judgments. 
• Panel 3 will be dedicated to providing an overview of UNCITRAL existing texts on electronic commerce and electronic communication.
• Panel 4: the discussions will focus on consistency across UNCITRAL instruments and to capitalize on the solution they provide.

The colloquium will end with a round-table discussion desirable approaches the Working Group could take, as outlined in document A/CN.9/1190, and any other potential avenues for advancing the work.

Programme

Speaker CVs

Official documents

• A/CN.9/WG.II/WP.237 - Annotated provisional agenda
• A/CN.9/WG.II/WP.238 - Note by the Secretariat of the Recognition and enforcement of electronic arbitral awards 
• A/CN.9/1154 - Stocktaking of Developments in Dispute Resolution in the Digital Economy 
• A/CN.9/1155 - Stocktaking of Developments in Dispute Resolution in the Digital Economy
• A/CN.9/1189 - Stocktaking of Developments in Dispute Resolution in the Digital Economy – progress report
• A/CN.9/1190 - Stocktaking of developments in dispute resolution in the digital economy – future work proposals

Colloquium Video Recordings (forthcoming)

Presentations (forthcoming)

Panel 1: Perspective from arbitral institutions

- Alexander G. Fessas
- Evgeniya Goriatcheva
- Nicolas Lozada Pimiento
- Shinji Ogawa
- Eliana Tornese
- Tomas Vaal
- Hamed Merah

Panel 2: Perspective from courts

-Ann Medioni
-Shusuke Kakiuchi
-Jiyong Jang
-Elizabeth Stong
-Reinmar Wolff
-Gloria Chevesich

Panel 3: An overview of UNCITRAL’s texts on electronic commerce and electronic communication 

-José Angelo Estrella Faria

Panel 4:  Interface between UNCITRAL arbitration and e-commerce texts

-Teresa Rodriguez de las Heras Ballell
-Zheng (Sophia) Tang
-Kabir Duggal

Roundtable discussion – exploring desirable approaches

-Lars Markert
-Pietro Ortolani
-Gaston Kenfack
-Marike Paulsson

Additional Resources

Government submission

• A/CN.9/1186 - Submission by the Governments of Germany, Israel, Japan, Republic of Korea and Spain (English only)

Arbitration texts

• Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (New York, 1958) (the "New York Convention")
• Recommendation regarding the interpretation of article II, paragraph 2, and article VII, paragraph 1, of the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, done in New York, 10 June 1958 (2006)
• UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration (1985), with amendments as adopted in 2006
• UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules (2021)
• UNCITRAL Notes on Organizing Arbitral Proceedings in 2016 (with an additional note on early dismissal and preliminary determination adopted in 2023)

Texts on electronic commerce and electronic communication

• United Nations Convention on the Use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts (New York, 2005)
• UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Signature (2001)
• UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Commerce (1996) with additional article 5 bis as adopted in 1998

Note: UNCITRAL texts are available at https://uncitral.un.org/en/texts.

Arbitration Rules from institutions