Preface

The United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) finalised the Notes at its twenty-ninth session (New York, 28 May–14 June 1996). In addition to the 36 member States of the Commission, representatives of many other States and of a number of international organisations had participated in the deliberations. In preparing the draft materials, the Secretariat consulted with experts from various legal systems, national arbitration bodies, as well as international professional associations.

The Commission, after an initial discussion on the project in 1993,<1> considered in 1994 a draft entitled ‘Draft Guidelines for Preparatory Conferences in Arbitral Proceedings’.<2> That draft was also discussed at several meetings of arbitration practitioners, including the XIIth International Arbitration Congress, held by the International Council for Commercial Arbitration (ICCA) at Vienna from 3 to 6 November 1994.<3> On the basis of those discussions in the Commission and elsewhere, the Secretariat prepared ‘draft Notes on Organizing Arbitral Proceedings’.<4> The Commission considered the draft Notes in 1995,<5> and a revised draft in 1996,<6> when the Notes were finalised.<7>

Background

The UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules have for over thirty years been the mainstay of international commercial arbitration throughout the world in a number of ways. First, they have provided a comprehensive and universal set of commercial arbitration rules which have been used by parties in ad hoc arbitrations; second, they have been adopted as the applicable arbitration rules under various arbitration regimes; third, they have provided an international benchmark, or guide, to institutions in the development of their own arbitration rules.

In thirty years the volume and extent of world trade has increased substantially, as has, consequently, the number and complexity of international disputes referred to arbitration. Arbitration and litigation techniques and expectations have also developed and changed, particularly as the cost of litigating or arbitrating has increased, both because cost structures have increased and because disputes are becoming more complex. The demands for efficiency and cost-effectiveness in both arbitration and litigation are becoming louder all the time. At the same time, any adjudicatory rule system must seek as much as possible to promote fairness and justice, regarding both the procedures adopted and the outcomes achieved. One of the challenges in designing any rule system is to promote fairness, efficiency and cost-effectiveness as much as possible and to deal with the many scenarios where these goals may conflict.