Sovereign Immunity from Execution and International Arbitration

Sovereign Immunity from Execution and International Arbitration is an invaluable book thoroughly investigating the intersection of international arbitration law and the law of sovereign immunity—in particular, the back end of the arbitral procedure where a creditor is seeking to enforce an award against a reluctant debtor State. In international arbitration, a State’s plea of sovereign immunity complicates post-award proceedings. The author questions whether the current doctrinal understanding of sovereign immunity from execution and its interpretation and application in the international arbitration context sit well with a 21st-century global marketplace, and provides well-informed suggestions on the available improvements.

The discussion proceeds as follows:
- whether and how domestic legislators and courts have contributed to shaping the law on sovereign immunity from execution, in general, and in the arbitration context in particular;
- whether and how domestic legislators and courts have facilitated award execution through procedural rules and court practices; and
- whether and how non-legal and pragmatically driven solutions can assist an award-creditor when the award-debtor State refuses to comply voluntarily with a pecuniary award.

The book delves deep into the practice of the courts in seven chosen jurisdictions—primarily the United Kingdom and the United States; then France, India, and Sweden; and then in a less rigorous manner China and Russia. These jurisdictions were selected considering their strong economic positioning in the contexts of commerce, trade, and investment, and also for the major global patterns they reveal of how sovereign immunity is interpreted. A comparative method is used to underscore areas of uniformity, potential for cross-fertilization, opportunities for harmonization, and where divergence persists.

This book, a nonpareil guide to the interpretation of sovereign immunity law in the international arbitration context, furnishes arbitrators, judges and policymakers with pragmatic strategies for confronting the plea of sovereign immunity. It offers policymakers and scholars the possibilities for new tools, positions, amendments, and reforms in this challenging legal territory that attempts to balance the two legitimate interests of sovereign immunity and arbitral expectations.