JIANG Lili

Committee Member & Secretary General, Beijing Arbitration Commission

Distinguished judges, experts, and colleagues,

Good afternoon! It is my great honour to attend the Fifth Seminar of the International Commercial Expert Committee. When we talk about the modernization of international commercial arbitration, the digital and intelligent transformation of arbitration services and institutional innovations like expedited procedures, multi-party and multi-contract arbitrations, and emergency arbitrators naturally cross our minds. All of these are undoubtedly important. However, for international commercial arbitration, the true test goes far beyond rendering awards efficiently and conveniently. The ultimate test is whether the systems we build, the procedures we design, and the awards we hand down can transcend different legal jurisdictions—whether they can be understood, respected, and ultimately enforced. In this sense, the New York Convention is itself one of the most vital institutional pillars of international commercial arbitration's modernization. For more than six decades, arbitration technology has evolved, procedures have shifted, and commercial transactions have taken on entirely new forms. Yet, the core legal efficacy of cross-border arbitration remains anchored in the global framework of recognition and enforcement forged by the Convention. Procedural innovations drive arbitration forward, but the New York Convention provides the stable international foundation that ensures market participants across diverse legal systems can always share a predictable expectation of arbitration.

With this understanding in mind, I would like to share a few thoughts from three perspectives.

First, the New York Convention has profoundly influenced the direction of the formation and development of China’s modern arbitration system. The New York Convention entered into force in China in 1987, which marked a significant milestone in the modernization and internationalization of our arbitration system. Before its implementation, the Supreme People's Court of China explicitly required people’s courts at all levels to handle relevant cases in accordance with the Convention. Subsequently, China’s civil procedure legislation gradually established a judicial review system for foreign-related arbitration that aligns with the Convention. The core concepts established by the New York Convention, such as respecting arbitration agreements and limiting the scope of judicial review, have, in turn, been progressively integrated into essential pillars of China's arbitration legal framework. It is precisely on this foundation that the 1994 Arbitration Law of China further codified these fundamental institutional concepts and principles through specialized legislation, embedding them into our system and establishing modern tenets, including party autonomy, independence of arbitration, and the finality of awards. It is fair to say that the New York Convention did more than just resolve issues regarding the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards; it provided a vital international reference for the establishment of China’s modern arbitration legal system. The newly revised Arbitration Law, which came into effect on March 1 of this year, further refines provisions on the seat of arbitration, interim measures, and online arbitration, highlighting an arbitration system that maintains Chinese characteristics while remaining compatible with prevailing international rules. Looking back at the past forty years of development, the modernization of Chinese arbitration has consistently been a process of grounding itself in domestic practice while actively adopting international norms and continuously harmonizing with international arbitration standards. This demonstrates that the internationalization of Chinese arbitration did not begin today. Rather, it has been deeply embedded in the trajectory of China’s reform, opening-up, and the development of our foreign-related rule of law since the very inception of our modern arbitration system.

Second, the stable and predictable judicial environment under the framework of the New York Convention has helped build institutional trust between the arbitration industry and courts. On the one hand, international commercial arbitration crosses different national legal systems and judicial traditions. When parties choose arbitration, they rely on the possibility that an award made in one place can become an enforceable right in another. That confidence ultimately depends on recognition and support from the judicial system. On the other hand, institutional coordination and mutual confidence between arbitral institutions and courts provide the necessary conditions for international commercial arbitration to operate effectively in practice. Courts provide a stable external environment through consistent, restrained, and predictable judicial review system, while the tribunals render awards through professional, rigorous, and international procedures satisfying the judicial review standards of foreign courts. Together, they shape market participants’ overall trust in a country’s system for resolving international commercial disputes. For many years, the Supreme People’s Court of China has firmly fulfilled China’s obligations under the New York Convention, and maintained a cautious approach to refusing recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. This not only provides a legal basis for the enforcement of awards after they are rendered, but also has a positive influence on the design of arbitral rules and the conduct of arbitral proceedings. Within this framework, the application of the New York Convention should also move forward in time, namely from an enforcement instrument after an award is rendered to a constraint and quality standard for procedure design. From arbitration agreement drafting, tribunal constitution, rules of evidence application and online procedure arrangement to expressing reasons in the award, whether the entire procedure has been designed for cross-border enforcement from the outset should become a conscious question for arbitral institutions and tribunals.

Third, the modernization of international commercial arbitration must be supported by an internationalized framework of rules and specialized practice. Since this year, the BAC/BIAC has implemented its “1+1+N” rules framework, including the dedicated International Arbitration Rules. The framework respects the parties’ choice of procedure, seat of arbitration, and applicable law, while improving mechanisms including interim measures, procedural orders, multi-contract and multi-party arbitration, document disclosure, expert witnesses, third-party funding, and electronic service. These arrangements serve not only procedural efficiency and flexibility, but also the ability of proceedings to be understood and accepted across jurisdictions. The value of modernizing the rules lies in transforming internationally accepted procedural concepts into arrangements that are stable, clear, predictable, and capable of withstanding cross-border judicial review. Modernization must also be tested through specialized practice. Over more than three decades, BAC has accepted more than 100,000 cases, with an aggregate amount in dispute exceeding one trillion RMB. Parties in the international cases come from 73 countries and regions. The awards have been enforced across all five continents, and there are 388 arbitrators from 59 countries and regions outside the Chinese Mainland in the BAC/BIAC’s roster. Through the experience of case handling, we clearly feel that cross-border disputes have extended to complex commercial structures involving regulatory rules, data flows, and supply-chain restructuring. Disputes in securities and futures, the digital economy, and intellectual property place higher demands on professional judgment, refined procedural management, and intelligible award reasoning. BAC/BIAC’s efforts in developing specialized fields and an international arbitrator team is intended to improve the adaptability of rules in specific cases, so that awards can be understood, respected, and enforced by parties, courts, and market participants in different jurisdictions.

For Chinese arbitration, good arbitral awards should cross jurisdictions, go out into the world, withstand scrutiny, and endure. BAC/BIAC is willing to offer its own practice as an observation sample, continue testing itself through case management, rule refinement, and international exchange, and work with all of you to advance the application of the New York Convention as a shared question of institutional capacity-building for international arbitration.

Thank you!