IV Edición Revista Derecho en Sociedad - Ulacit

DERECHO EN SOCIEDAD, N. º 4 . Enero del 2013
Revista electrónica de la Facultad de Derecho, ULACIT – Costa Rica
The flexibility in arbitration procedures comes as a result of one of it is cornerstones: party
autonomy 6 .This principle entitles parties to a dispute to be the architects of the
proceedings. This means, that parties are allowed to agree in a vast number of topics,
including: (i) the number of arbitrators that will be responsible for reaching a decision; (ii)
their time limit for reaching that decision; (iii) the selection of a method for choosing the
arbitrators; (iv) the manner in which proceedings should be conducted; (v) The applicable
law for to the dispute; (vi) to decide if the arbitration proceedings will be administered by
an institution, or by the arbitrators themselves; (vii) determine which methods will be
available to prove the facts of a dispute; and in general, (viii) any other factor that falls in
the sphere of the parties autonomy.
The mandate, or objective that the members of an Arbitral Tribunal (sole or multi-­arbitrator)
is to reach a final and binding decision, an enforceable award. It is important to
bring into account that the award ruled by the arbitrators, if dictated in one of the
countries that has signed the New York Convention, the decision will be enforceable in
more than one hundred and forty jurisdictions.
The consequences of having an award can be glorious or disastrous, due to the different
places that the document can be enforced; hence, it is of great importance to study the way
that this arbitral tribunals are constituted, specially those tribunals that are formed with
more than one arbitrator.
The common practice in the multi arbitrator tribunals is that two out of the three
arbitrators are unilaterally appointed by the parties, one each; and the third -­‐the presiding-­‐
arbitrator, is selected by the arbitrators appointed by the parties. This brings up all type of
situations, from collaborative arbitrators that fulfills their functions with due diligence; to
interest is the Inter-­‐American Convention on International Commercial Arbitration (1975), Hereinafter
‘Panama’ Convention.
6 Heuman, L. (2003) ‘Arbitration Law of Sweden: Practice and Procedure’. United States: Juris Publishing.
Pag.249.
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