Introduction
Despite the growth of other international arbitration institutions throughout the world, arbitration conducted under the Rules of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce, with headquarters in Paris, remains the preeminent procedure for resolving major international commercial disputes.
Approximately 400 new cases are filed each year and the procedure has a wide international following. Within recent years parties in ICC arbitration have represented nearly 100 different countries.
Rules Review Group
While existing ICC arbitration procedures continue to be successfully applied, it has been decided that a group should be set up to examine the present set of Rules and advise modifications thereto.
The first proposal was made to the International Chamber of Commerce Arbitration Commission by members of the International Court of Arbitration and would have taken the form of simple additions to the existing Rules to resolve a number of specific problems that have arisen in current practice. Despite some attraction to this piecemeal approach which could have been rapidly accomplished, the ICC Arbitration Commission decided in June 1995 to set up a Working Group to examine all aspects of the Rules. This group decided that, the matters addressed by the International Court, while the specific did require attention, but that it would be impractical to adopt limited modifications immediately and to study an overall revision over a longer period of time. The Working Group recommended instead that a full revision of the Rules be undertaken, keeping in mind that the specificity of the ICC Rules as presently drafted should be retained. This specificity includes: i) the International Court of Arbitration will scrutinize all awards presented to it by ICC arbitrators prior to their final approval, ii) Arbitral Tribunals will draw up Terms of Reference concerning the arbitration prior to undertaking substantive proceedings thereon, and iii) the present design of the Rules which sets out, once the Tribunal has been constituted, only general guidelines for the conduct of proceedings, leaving wide discretion to the arbitrators, would be retained. In its overall examination of the Rules, the Working Group will consider modifications which would aim at: reducing delays, reducing unpredictability, rationalizing costs, improving any defective rules.
At the same time, the Working Group will examine other modern arbitration rules such as those of UNCITRAL, the LCIA and WIPO in order to determine whether any of the provisions should be adopted for the ICC Rules of Arbitration.
The last complete overhaul of the Rules took place in 1975. Limited revisions were also made in 1988. Prior to that an earlier edition of the Rules was published in 1955.
The members of the Working Group represent countries from various different legal backgrounds, including civil law and common law countries.
William Laurence Craig, a Partner in Coudert Frères, the Paris office of Coudert Brothers, and an author of International Chamber of Commerce Arbitration, the standard work on the subject, is a member of this Working Group.
The Working Group has proposed a draft of revised rules which have been circulated for comment to national committees of the ICC. The draft rules will be presented to the Commission for further study at its December session with hope for approval of a new set of Rules in 1997.