This chapter focusses on a narrow topic: the law applicable to post-award issues. It deals in turn with the law applicable to recognition and enforcement proceedings, to annulment proceedings, and to post-award issues in investment arbitration. Enforcement of arbitral awards typically takes place within the framework of the 1958 New York Convention, but this chapter will also refer to relevant provisions of the UNCITRAL Model Law on Commercial Arbitration, the 1961 Geneva Convention and the ICSID Convention. Issues covered include the law applicable to the following issues: the validity of the arbitration agreement, arbitrability, arbitral procedure, competence of the tribunal, scope of the dispute, public policy, finality of the award and annulment. Particular attention will be given to the extent to which potentially diverse answers arising from the designation of national law may be mitigated by evolving transnational norms for some of the issues examined.

The most efficient and cost-effective way to resolve a dispute is through an agreed settlement, rather than a resource-consuming and costly adjudication through courts or arbitration.Parties increasingly use negotiation and mediation to resolve disputes, which policymakers, lawmakers and dispute organizations encourage.The Singapore Convention on Mediation recently introduced an international regime for the enforcement of international mediation settlement agreements.However, because it is not yet widely adopted and some settlements – such as negotiated settlements and settlements reached during an arbitration - may be outside of its scope, parties that want to ensure an effective international enforcement mechanism for their settlement may seek to have settlement converted into an arbitral award. This chapter considers the issues that may arise when seeking to turn a settlement into an arbitral award, including the timing of the settlement and the existence of a dispute to refer to arbitration, the interchangeability of the role of mediator and arbitrator, the exercise of arbitrators’ discretion to grant parties’ request for a consent award, and the status, form, and content of the consent award.

The mixed claims commissions, which had a degree of autonomy from the agendas of the states that imposed them, produced a rich and extensive body of case law on state responsibility for rebels. The practice of the commissions to enforce claims based in contract greatly increased the scope of state responsibility for rebels, in a way that reduced the risks for foreign nationals of doing business in Latin America and insulated commercial relations from political instability; the arbitral practice had a politics, even if it did not necessarily or straightforwardly reflect the context of the commissions’ establishment. The commissions engaged with a number of important international legal rules and principles: the general principle of non-responsibility for rebels, with exceptions for successful rebels, rebels who establish de facto authority and negligence in failing to protect against rebels. The exceptions to non-responsibility, particularly the duty of protection, would end up being more important than the rule. At the same time, the practice of the commissions was at times contradictory and ambiguous, providing only the shakiest foundation for future obligations.