Security for Costs in International Commercial Arbitration

In this article, I present the existing legal rules surrounding security for costs in international arbitration by performing a representative survey of national arbitration laws and institutional rules of both common law and civil law jurisdictions, across legal regimes of different theoretical perspectives. I then turn to the effect of policy considerations on the evaluation of desirability of ordering security for costs, as well as the amount and the procedures of offering security for costs. Lastly, I review the experiences across the globe and argue that amid the global trend in favor of arbitration, there needs to be a more unified procedural regime across jurisdictions in security for costs to allow international commercial arbitration to evolve towards greater flexibility and efficiency while accounting for the commercial need of legal certainty.