Despite a decades-long movement that has succeeded in harmonizing key aspects of the legal framework governing the international arbitration system, the notion of ‘arbitral award’ remains surprisingly elusive. Several problems, which are both theoretically challenging and practically consequential, follow. First, it is not clear to what extent – if any – an international arbitration award draws its legal effectiveness from the legal order of the seat of arbitration. This issue becomes of prime importance when an award that has been set aside in the jurisdiction where it was rendered is subsequently presented for recognition and enforcement in the courts of another state.Second, we are not sure which decisions (aside from those that are clearly mere scheduling orders and those that are clearly merits decisions) constitute arbitral awards, a decision that has significant consequences for enforceability and other applicable arbitration rules.Third, can arbitral awards constitute international investments that attract the protection of investment treaties? Here as well, there are diverging viewpoints on key questions that go to the legal nature of arbitral awards.In seeking answers to these questions, this chapter explores the legal nature of arbitral awards with a view to attempting to identify their distinctive features.

The most efficient and cost-effective way to resolve a dispute is through an agreed settlement, rather than a resource-consuming and costly adjudication through courts or arbitration.Parties increasingly use negotiation and mediation to resolve disputes, which policymakers, lawmakers and dispute organizations encourage.The Singapore Convention on Mediation recently introduced an international regime for the enforcement of international mediation settlement agreements.However, because it is not yet widely adopted and some settlements – such as negotiated settlements and settlements reached during an arbitration - may be outside of its scope, parties that want to ensure an effective international enforcement mechanism for their settlement may seek to have settlement converted into an arbitral award. This chapter considers the issues that may arise when seeking to turn a settlement into an arbitral award, including the timing of the settlement and the existence of a dispute to refer to arbitration, the interchangeability of the role of mediator and arbitrator, the exercise of arbitrators’ discretion to grant parties’ request for a consent award, and the status, form, and content of the consent award.