Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly
BOOK REVIEW - XTH INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION CONGRESS STOCKHOLM 1990: I. PREVENTING DELAY AND DISRUPTION OF ARBITRATION; II
Xth INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION CONGRESS STOCKHOLM 1990: I. Preventing Delay and Disruption of Arbitration; II. Effective Proceedings in Construction Cases. General Editor Professor Albert Jan van den Berg. Kluwer, Deventer (1991, xi and 565 pp., plus 48 pp. Appendices). Paperback Hfl. 190.
This book contains the record of the proceedings of the Xth International Arbitration Congress of the International Council for Commercial Arbitration held at Stockholm, 28–31 May 1990. The conference was divided into two working groups, each dealing with one of the topics to which the title refers. Rapporteurs reported on a wide spectrum of issues under each topic, and in relation to the first working group a panel of international experts added their comments. The reports of the rapporteurs, together with the comments of the panel, occupy the bulk of the book. The balance of the text is occupied by the Preface, the welcoming addresses from the President of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, the President of the Svea Court of Appeal, the Swedish Minister of Justice, the opening and closing addresses of the Congress, a list of oral and written interventions, the conference programme, a list of participants, and various information about the conference and the ICCA.
A practitioner in the field of International Arbitration is acutely aware of the Biblical metaphor of the house built upon sand, or the more modern one of “moving the goal posts”. With the parties often free to choose where and on what terms they arbitrate disputes, forum shopping, refusal to agree on elementary rules (even on who makes the rules) and problems of enforcement proliferate. Some principal concerns tend to be: (a) the appointment of the arbitral tribunal; (b) rules of procedure; (c) costs and who is to pay them; (d) the venue; (e) the extent of intervention powers of local courts; and (f) the validity and enforcement of
551