The Second Edition of this unprecedented volume assembles an updated and expanded country-by-country analysis – both practical and insightful – of how arbitration is conducted in forty-nine African countries, providing essential information about legislative provisions, treaty adherence, and arbitral procedure. Contributors include sought-after African arbitrators, distinguished practitioners, academics and institution-builders, all of whom are active in promoting the use of arbitration as a viable means of dispute resolution in Africa. Five sections representing the main regions of the continent, each with a substantive introductory chapter covering the major trends within that region, offer country overviews addressing issues such as the following: adherence to the key arbitration conventions; modernity of a State’s arbitration legislation and its compatibility with the UNCITRAL Model Law; particular features of arbitral practice in that jurisdiction (including responses to the COVID-19 pandemic); access to and (where available) statistics from local and regional arbitral institutions; significant arbitration-related national case law; and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. A sixth section focuses on treaty-based investor-State arbitration against African States under the ICSID Convention, providing an empirical analysis of the experience and record of African States with investor-State arbitration in the period between 2010 and 2020. Useful tables and graphics of intra-African bilateral investment treaties, a list of ICSID proceedings involving African States, a list of treaty accession by African States, and other tabular features round out the volume. The first edition of this volume was welcomed by arbitration practitioners and legal academics everywhere as an essential guide to an emerging and important area of international arbitration practice. This second edition tracks the significant developments (in treaty accession, reform of arbitration legislation and developing case law) that have taken place over the past decade, and confirms that arbitration as a preferred method of dispute resolution is now firmly entrenched on the African continent.

Given the dynamic growth of African economies and the expansion of cross-border trade and commerce, the need for readily accessible African arbitral institutions has become increasingly urgent. Accordingly, this book not only offers an in-depth analysis of the role arbitration centres based in African cities currently play throughout the continent but also defines and recommends ways in which they can emerge as a major and indispensable factor in the growth and development of commerce in Africa. Administrators of arbitration institutions from a variety of African countries offer insightful appraisals and suggestions directed to promoting the development and delivery of efficient, effective arbitration services to users across the continent. Among the issues and topics covered are the following: • types of arbitration institutions available in Africa; • viability and sustainability of these institutions; • institutions’ relationship with government; • quality of service; • performance of arbitration institutions in their respective countries and regions; • national laws that regulate arbitration in Africa’s fifty-four states; • extent of collaboration with foreign institutions; • provision of functional facilities, transcription services, hearing rooms, document handling, and managerial and translation services; • marketing activities and strategies; • mending the disconnect between Francophone and Anglophone countries; • role of the Common Court of Justice and Arbitration (CCJA); and • necessity of overcoming foreign negative perceptions and bias. The book was inspired by an arbitration conference hosted by the African Union Commission at its headquarters in Addis Ababa in July 2015. As a contribution to the discussion of the role arbitration and arbitration institutions can play in transforming the legal landscape in African countries for the resolution of commercial disputes – indeed, the entire discourse on legal efficiency and access to justice in African countries – this book will prove invaluable to practitioners and academics in international commercial arbitration within and beyond the continent. Its emphasis on the creation of a facilitative, supportive, and conducive cultural and infrastructural environment as a mechanism for commercial dispute resolution in Africa and for the practice of arbitration in Africa will appeal to in-house counsel, external legal advisors, consultants, arbitral institutions, arbitrators, and government policymakers.

The Practitioner's Guide to Arbitration in the Middle East and North Africa is the culmination of the real experience and expertise from those experts and authorities directly involved with arbitration in their respective countries. The book is the first of its kind to target the Mena region specifically and is essential for anyone working in the area of arbitration both in the Middle East and world-wide. The practice of arbitration of private disputes is not new to MENA countries. Arbitration has long been recognized as a legitimate and culturally accepted practice of dispute resolution, dating back to dispute resolution practices of the early Islamic period, and even the pre-Islamic era. International commercial arbitration, and its cultural and juridical acceptance, is a more recent and complex phenomenon nonetheless on the rise in MENA countries. It is now standard for arbitration clauses to be included in contracts governing international transactions and there is a growing consensus among MENA merchants engaged in international trade, along with their commercial counterparts in the rest of the world, that international arbitration is preferable to litigation in domestic courts for purposes of resolving private commercial disputes. While subject to some qualifications and restrictions in some instances, in many, if not most, MENA countries, arbitration clauses can be included in contracts with government entities engaging in commercial transactions. Additionally, conferences, seminars, and training programs in international arbitration are on the rise, and various international arbitration centres have been established. The advantages from the perspective of private parties are tremendous: Parties can elect which law will apply to disputes arising from their transactions, and they can remove themselves from the constraints and biases of parochial attitudes in national courts. There is also an increasing acceptance by national courts of international arbitration standards, such as the principle of Kompetenz-Kompetenz, recognising the right of arbitrators to decide their own jurisdiction and the separability of the arbitration clause. More frequently, courts are granting assistance and support to international arbitrations and are more receptive to enforcing foreign awards. This book is a comprehensive guide to arbitration in Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, UAE, and Yemen. Written in question/answer format by leading practicioners and firms from the region, it elicits the most salient features of the legal framework for arbitration and international arbitration in each of the respective countries.

International Commercial Arbitration and African States is a timely assessment of the arbitral process in the African context. The book focuses on the contribution that arbitration, and other methods of alternative dispute resolution, may make to the development of African states and peoples, while satisfying the legitimate expectations of inward investors and traders. Although focusing on dispute resolution regimes affecting or concerning African states and their nationals, the work will also have practical, policy and comparative implications for dispute resolution, commercial arbitration and foreign investment in other regions.

The nature and magnitude of the growth in China-Africa economic relations in recent years is unprecedented and extraordinary. According to recent estimates, the value of China’s trade with African nations grew from a mere USD 10 million in the 1980s to USD 55 billion in 2006, and to more than USD 100 billion by the end of 2009, at which time nearly 1,600 Chinese companies were doing business in Africa with a direct stock investment of about USD 7.8 billion. The accelerating impetus of China-Africa trade has overtaken some crucially important features of an effective trade regime, most notably a fully trustworthy dispute resolution system. It is the current and potential future efficacy of such a system that is taken up in this book with great understanding and skill. The author evaluates existing mechanisms of dispute resolution in all aspects of China-Africa economic relations in light of the parties’ economic and cultural profiles and their evolving legal traditions, and goes on to propose a comprehensive institutional model of dispute resolution that takes full account of the economic needs and legal cultures of both China and the various African countries. Among the topics and issues that arise in the course of the book are the following: suitability of the WTO’s dispute resolution mechanism for China-Africa trade relations; domestic, bilateral, regional, and multilateral law sources affecting China-Africa commerce; the role of intra-Africa bilateral investment treaties; competing interests that underpin international investment law; relevant legal, economic, and political challenges and cultural barriers; permissible scope of regional trade regimes; national treatment versus duty to compensate; and harmonization initiatives—model laws, incoterms, restatements. The author includes in-depth analysis of how China-Africa economic relations fare in the varieties of dispute resolution methods available at the major arbitral European and American institutions—ICSID, AAA, ICC, LCIA, PCA—as well as under the rules of the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC) and the important arbitral fora in Cairo, Kuala Lumpur, and Lagos. Endorsing institutional arbitration as the most appropriate form of resolving trade, investment, and commercial disputes arising between China and African countries, this ground-breaking analysis outlines the obstacles and shortcomings of the available means of dispute settlement, both in international and domestic contexts, and offers deeply informed recommendations for improvement of the existing system. Although the book will be welcomed by interested scholars and practitioners for its detailed discussion of how China-Africa trade relations are situated within the global trade regime, its most enduring value lies in its thorough evaluation of the available options and its proposals for structuring a legal framework within which future disputes will be effectively resolved.

With the increase in commercial transactions within the fifty-four independent African states and at the international level, it has become apparent that most of the legal framework for arbitration across the continent require reform. Accordingly, in recent years, as this first in-depth treatment of arbitration in Africa shows, jurisprudence from national courts of various African jurisdictions demonstrates that the courts are becoming more pro-arbitration and judges increasingly better understand that their role is to support or complement the arbitral process. This book documents the second SOAS Arbitration in Africa conference held in Lagos in June 2016. In thirteen lucid chapters, African practitioners and academics and European specialists in African legal and arbitral systems provide a remarkably thorough overview of the relation of courts and arbitration in the continent. Among the matters that arise for discussion are the: • disposition of courts in Africa towards arbitration, whether supportive or interventionist; • involvement of courts in the arbitral process before, during, and after an award has been rendered; • publication and access to arbitration-related decisions from African courts; • enforcement of annulled awards in African states under the New York Convention; • prospects for the establishment of a pan-African investment court; and • how foreign courts (particularly in the United States, France, and Switzerland) perceive African arbitration. Because of the wide range of developmental stages among Africa’s numerous court and legal systems, Part I of the book explores generic issues relevant to courts and arbitration, followed by detailed descriptions, including court decisions, of the situation in eight specific jurisdictions – Egypt, South Africa, Sudan, Mauritius, Nigeria, Ghana, Rwanda, and Kenya. The authors of these latter chapters are legal practitioners and academics from each of these countries. Throughout this book, policy recommendations for improving access to court decisions and laws in African states are brought to the fore. In its expertise-based advocacy for a mutually harmonious and supportive co-existence for arbitration and litigation in the context of the complexities and peculiarities of African states – and its confrontation of the predominantly negative perception that often leads to ‘arbitration flight’ from the continent – this book helps companies, investors, and their advisors to base their decisions on facts and not perceptions. It will be of great value to practising lawyers in arbitration as counsel or arbitrators, companies doing transnational business, global law firms, government officials, and academics in the field.