5 Singapore Law and Arbitration

In an attempt to explore the legal concept of incorporating arbitration clauses, specific weight is given to Singapore arbitration in this chapter. The particular reason for this is that Singapore, being a common law jurisdiction, has been under the large influence of the decisions of English courts and English contract law. Correspondingly, some well-settled English principles, such as the ‘restricted rule’ that generally necessitates the employment of specific words of incorporation, have dominated the practice in relevant areas of law in this specific jurisdiction. Some English contract law principles had an undeniable impact on the ‘shaping process’ of the relevant law of Singapore. It is true that the decisions of English courts are not binding in the legal system of Singapore, but they may indeed be used for interpretative purposes. Accordingly, the implementation of some of these principles has shown parallels with some of the decisions of the English courts, in which they find application, even after the Republic of Singapore officially became independent on August 9, 1965, subsequent to some 140 years of British rule on the territory.