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24 Asia Pac. L. Rev. 1 (2016)

handle is hein.journals/asiaplwre24 and id is 1 raw text is: 


ASIA PACIFIC LAW REVIEW, 2016
VOL. 24, NO. 1, 1-15
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10192577.2016.1198542                             Taylor & Francis Group



Arbitration and Public Policy

2016 Goff Lecture

Robert French

Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, Australia


   ABSTRACT                                                          ARTICLE HISTORY
   Commercial arbitration being contractually based is a matter of private   Received 4 May 2016
   law. Its effectiveness depends upon legislative support defined by Accepted 3 June 2016
   external public policy considerations. Those considerations invite scru-  KEYWORDS
   tinyof the costs and benefits of commercial arbitration including its  Arbitration; commercial
   effect on the developmnent of commercial law and an appropriate   arbitration; public policy;
   balance between arbitral mechanisms and cornerdal courts. The  arbitrability; Lord Goff;
   growth of commercial arbitration and its application in sensitive UNCITRAL Model Law
   areas such as consumner contracts of adhesion m-ay enliven public
   policy responses. Internal constraints in relation to arbitrability and
   public policy lim-its on enforcemnent play a part in enabling arbitration.
   to function in a way that is sensitive to the larger social and political
   environm-ent in which it is conducted.





I. Introduction

The man in whose name this Annual Lecture is presented, Lord Goff of Chieveley, has an
honoured place in the pantheon of great lawyers of the common law world. I thank the
City University of Hong Kong for inviting me to present this address, which is the 21st in
the series, the first having been delivered by Lord Goff in 1990. The involvement of the
University and the sponsors of the Lecture, King & Wood Mallesons and the Building and
Construction Industry Council, reflect the worlds of the Academy and practice as well as
that of the judiciary in all of which Lord Goff made signal contributions.
   This Lecture concerns the external public policy environment which underpins and
informs the legal regimes which govern arbitration and the internal public policy
constraints expressly and impliedly embedded in the legal criteria for setting aside
and refusing recognition and enforcement of awards.


II. The external public policy environment

Commercial arbitration is contractually based and, to that extent, underpinned by private law.
It derives efficacy from public law which provides for the recognition and enforcement of
awards and a degree of judicial supervision. That is because it is seen as serving a legitimate


CONTACT Robert French 0 jsulcs@hcourt.gov.au
© 2016 School of Law, City University of Hong Kong

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