A New Regional Arbitration Forum

In cross-border contracts involving South African concerns and various foreign parties, most often one or other of such foreign parties are unfamiliar with South African law and the South African legal system. Consequently, such parties often insist that the dispute resolution mechanism in the relevant agreement provide for arbitration of potential disputes before a foreign arbitration tribunal. Thus one sees in such international agreements mechanisms for arbitration of disputes in London, Paris or New York under International Chamber of Commerce-, UNCITRAL-, or London Court of International Arbitration rules.

The difficulty for the South African litigant is that arbitration under these mechanisms most often involves application of systems and principles of law equally foreign to them. More particularly, any South African who has arbitrated in theses centres under any of these regimes can testify to the prohibitive cost of doing so. These issues undermine the fundamental principles