The Arbitration Brief

Winning Isn’t Getting Paid: Russia and the Enforcement Crisis in Arbitration

By Esther Eikins International arbitration is often regarded as the premier mechanism for resolving cross-border disputes because it promises neutral decision-making and enforceable outcomes. Yet enforcement battles involving Russia reveal how fragile this system can be when geopolitical conflict intervenes. Although the enforcement framework under the New York Convention relies on national courts to recognize…

Race and Arbitration: The Unspoken Rules of the American Arbitration System

By Genevieve Francois Introduction The American arbitration system is governed by the Federal Arbitration Act, which creates a structure that allows companies to mandate arbitration for dispute resolution. This format forces disputes to be resolved privately rather than in the more public arena of the court system. Mandatory arbitration clauses are often purposefully hidden within…

Effective Vindication in Name Only: How Arbitration Rights Now Depend on Geography

By Braxton Johnson Defendants invoke arbitration to control costs, timelines, and exposure, but courts must still confront a threshold question: will arbitration permit plaintiffs to meaningfully vindicate federal statutory rights? In Italian Colors, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) sought to answer this question by recognizing the “effective vindication doctrine,” which bars enforcement…

Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards in Vietnam

By Dr. Nguyet Le Background Five years after ratifying the New York Convention 1958 (the NYC), Vietnam enacted its first Commercial Arbitration Law on June 17, 2010 (Law 54). Law 54 differentiates between the annulment review of domestic arbitral awards’ proceedings and the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. It remains controversial whether this…

Sustainable Development Compliance in International Investment Agreements: Enforceable at Arbitration?

By Carolina Joy As international investment agreements (IIAs) increasingly include references to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), investor-state arbitration further becomes a site of global governance, mediating conflicts between private investment protection and public development objectives. Within this dispute resolution mechanism, the tension between the soft law of the SDGs and the hard…