On March 28, 2019, Professor Emmanuel Gaillard, an authority on International Arbitration, visited UIBE and held a lecture entitled "Coordination of Chaos in International Commercial Arbitration" in the International Exchange Center. More than 200 guests including lawyers, faculty and students from UIBE Law School attended the lecture.

(Conference Overview)

The conference was presided by Professor Shen Sibao. In the opening speech, Professor Gong Hongliu, vice-dean of UIBE Law School, warmly welcomed Professor Emmanuel Gaillard. Then, Professor Shen introduced Professor Gaillard's rich professional background to the guests. Professor Emmanuel Gaillard founded the Shearman & Sterling Law Firm and is also Global Head of the Firm’s Dispute Department. He has rich experience in commercial arbitration and investment arbitration. He advises and represents companies, States and State-owned entities in commercial and investment treaty arbitrations and is universally regarded as a leading authority and a star practitioner in both these fields. He also acts as arbitrator and expert witness. Over the course of his career, Professor Emmanuel Gaillard has acted in many of the largest international disputes submitted to arbitration, including the $50 billion award secured for the majority shareholders of the former Yukos Oil Company. In addition to his long tenure at the 12th University of Paris-Sorbonne, Professor Gaillard is also a visiting professor of Yale Law School and Harvard Law School. He has published many influential papers and works in English and French.

(Professor Gong Hongliu & Professor Shen Sibao)

In his lecture, Professor Emmanuel Gaillard first proposed that in the dynamic practice of international commercial dispute settlement, any slight change in any link would bring a long-term and huge chain reaction to the overall dispute settlement mechanism, which will cause chaos or disorder. Professor Gaillard believes that in complex international cases that may involve multiple jurisdictions, coordination and comity among multiple dispute resolution methods are crucial to ensure fair outcomes and improve the efficiency of dispute resolution. This coordination and comity should include three parts. Firstly, more and more countries should endorse the principle of arbitral tribunal’s self-determination jurisdiction at a higher level. The negative effect of the arbitral tribunal’s self-determination jurisdiction is to exclude the court's prior examination of the jurisdictional objection of the arbitral tribunal, and to give priority to the parties’ declaration of intention on arbitration as far as possible. When examining the objection to the jurisdiction of the arbitral tribunal, the court presumes that the arbitral tribunal has jurisdiction. The arbitral tribunal may issue an injunction requiring the parties to stop the repeated prosecution in the court, and the court may also issue an injunction requiring the parties to stop the repeated prosecution in the arbitral tribunal, which may lead to multiple injunctions between the arbitral tribunal and the court. Secondly, coordination among different arbitral tribunals. For example, commercial arbitration should be in accordance with the principle of “non bis in idem”, and investment arbitration should prohibit investors from repeatedly suing the same fact for abuse of their rights under different bilateral investment agreements. Thirdly, the coordination of arbitration among courts of different countries. When the court acknowledges and enforces foreign arbitral awards, it should focus on the arbitration award itself, rather than the relevant judgments of other courts. .

(Professor Emmanuel Gaillard)

Professor Emmanuel Gaillard’s excellent lecture evoked a strong response from the audience. During the question-and-answer section presided by Professor Gong Hongliu, teachers and students as well as guests had a 40-minute discussion with Professor Gaillard. Professor Gaillard not only patiently gave further answers to the contents of his speech, but also made detailed comments on China’s International Commercial Court, One Belt And One Road dispute resolution mechanism and other hot issues.

(Q&A Section)

This wonderful academic lecture brought by professor Emmanuel Gaillard will help teachers and students in UIBE Law School to enhance the understanding of the new development of international commercial arbitration. After the lecture, UIBE law school held a cocktail party for the guests. Professor Emmanuel Gaillard, along with several other partner lawyers from Sherman Sterling Law Firm, continued in-depth discussions with the guests. The event ended smoothly in a warm atmosphere.

(Guests Photograph)