The Case for an International Commercial Court

Abstract

This article which was first published in the "Festschrift for Norbert Horn", 931 (de Gruyter Berlin 2007), deals with the supervision of international arbitrators and the need and facility for them to seek preliminary opinions in appropriate cases from a newly to be created International Commercial Court, especially when matters of public policy may arise at the transnational level or where new proprioetary rights affecting third parties may be formulated by international arbitrators in the context of the further development of the modern lex mercatoria, its different legal sources and the hierarchy amongst them. The notion of an appeal or revision facility is here rejected in favour of a more limited facility that is preemptive and also supervises the conduct of international arbitrators. It would require treaty status and could then even replace and centralise the recognition and enforcement of foreign awards under the New York Convention.