Professor Franco Ferrari, the Center’s Director, has just published a paper entitled “Plures leges faciunt arbitrum” in issue 3/2021 of Arbitration International.
In his paper, Professor Ferrari asserts that in international arbitration the lex loci arbitri has not lost its importance, which is not to say that it operates as the exclusive source of the arbitral process. While it is still the law of the seat that primarily furnishes arbitration its legal framework, in the form of ground rules in accordance with which arbitral activity may validly take place at the arbitral seat, it is not the only law imposing itself upon an international arbitration. In other words, the regulatory sovereignty of the State of the seat of arbitration is not necessarily the only one to be triggered during the different stages of an arbitration’s life-cycle. This is due to the fact that this regulatory sovereignty encounters both subject-matter limitations and territorial limitations, and, therefore, depending on what matter is to be addressed – and when and by whom – may call into play the regulatory sovereignty of States other than that of the seat. Thus, plures leges faciunt arbitrum.
