Conflict of Laws Issues in International Arbitration: Practice and Trends

Abstract

This paper examines the different methods of conflict of laws or private international law that arbitrators follow in order to determine the proper law or applicable substantive law of a contract when the choice of law provision is absent. It is shown that there are two principal trends in those methods that lead respectively to the theories of localization and delocalization or denationalization of international arbitration.The arbitrator's freedom of will plays an important role towards such denationalization. However, to what extent arbitrators can exercise that freedom is a matter of some controversy. On the issues of choice of law theory and practice, the paper attempts to offer some practical insights.