Research On The Recognition And Enforcement Of ICSID Arbitral Awards In China

International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationalities of Other States(ICSID),built under the Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of other States in 1966,has enabledto render 265 arbitral awards and played a crucial role in resolution of internationalinvestment disputes in the last half century since its foundation.Most of the arbitralawards rendered by the tribunalshave been performed,which benefits from the independent and perfect mechanism of ICSID convention,however,in some cases,such as S.A.R.L.Benvenuti&Bonfant v.Cong and LETCO v.Liberia,the winning parties were not able to be compensated for pecuniary interest in the awards due to a variety of reasons,even though their requests were fully supported by the tribunals;without the possibility for the winning party to enforce the arbitral award in its desired country,the whole arbitration process becomes pointless,therefore,the effectiveness of ICSID arbitral awards rely largely on the domestic laws.In 1993,China ratified the ICSID Convention,and ‘pursuant to Article 25(4)of the Convention,the Chinese Government wouldonly consider submitting to the jurisdiction of the International Centre forSettlement of Investment Disputes over compensation resulting fromexpropriation and nationalization',while in theBITs signed in recent years,China has expanded the scope to ‘the disputes relating to investment'.And such a tendency,in which China will involve in more investment disputes is unavoidable in future,meanwhile,Chinese government has not yet legislated to support the implementation of ICSID Convention,especially the recognition and enforcement of ICSID arbitral awards.In practice,the recognition and enforcement of ICSID arbitral awards is usually divided into two steps,the recognition and the enforcement,and it's easy to recognize the awards for parties and members of the Convention.In contrast,the enforcement is relatively difficult.Considering the reality of legislation of supporting measures of ICSID Convention,it is concluded that Chinese government would be confronted with various difficulties while dealing with the recognition and enforcement of ICSID arbitral award.Based on the analysis of the relative mechanism,this paper will research the practice and potential problems of the recognition and enforcement of ICSID arbitral awards,and finally comprehensively supply specific feasible advices.