Abstract

This paper presents an overview of the proceedings on recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards in Azerbaijan. It starts with a scrutiny of the status quo of international commercial arbitration in Azerbaijan, setting it in the context of the economic development of the country over the last 30 years. This scrutiny is a background for the following analysis of the international treaty framework, national legislation and court practice. Special attention is paid to the elements in the national legislation that deviate from the international best practices. Another focus of the paper are structural problems of the regulation, in particular parallel regulation proceedings on recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards in the Law on International Arbitration and the Civil Procedural Code. Authors also analyse court practice based on thirty decisions of the Supreme Court of Azerbaijan concerning recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards and court decisions, covering the period of past ten years. The main focus is made on the recent decision of the Constitutional Court of Azerbaijan declaring the decision of the Supreme Court of Azerbaijan denying the recognition and enforcement of the arbitral award rendered by the Korean Commercial Arbitration Board (KCAB) unconstitutional. The paper is also an attempt to determine the vector of further development in the light of ongoing reforms of economic legislation and the recent decision of the Constitutional Court.

This paper will be part of the TDM Special Issue on "The Changing Paradigm of Dispute Resolution and Investment Protection in Post-soviet and Greater Eurasian Space". More information here www.transnational-dispute-management.com/news.asp?key=1745