INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL ARBITRATION

The Competence-Competence Doctrine

The Competence-Competence Doctrine

The doctrine of competence-competence, which holds that an arbitral tribunal may determine questions as to its own jurisdiction, is an important aspect of arbitration law. It is observe that if arbitrators could not determine questions as to their own jurisdiction, a recalcitrant respondent could easily frustrate the parties' agreement to have their dispute decided by arbitration or at least create considerable delay by merely contesting the existence or validity of the arbitration agreement in court. (Walt, 1999) Further observation also shows that such a situation would seriously undermine arbitration as an effective means of private ...