Chapter 5 focuses on judicial assistance for arbitration and the importance of a court’ oversight role. Courts have resources, such as coercive powers, that tribunals lack. These powers enable courts to enter orders and impose penalties on parties who fail to comply. Additionally, courts play an important oversight role to ensure that arbitration adheres to minimum standards of fairness and due process. The chapter discusses the various ways that parties may seek court assistance, including asking the court to enforce an agreement to arbitrate, compel arbitration or rule on jurisdictional issues. Courts can also provide emergency relief such as orders to maintain the status quo, attach assets, or secure costs to preserve the effectiveness of the arbitration process. Although the extent of judicial review varies among jurisdictions, in most jurisdictions, courts and tribunals have concurrent jurisdiction to grant interim measures. in general, parties may seek provisional measures from a court before the tribunal is constituted, but once the tribunal is in place, they may need the tribunal’s authorization to seek court relief, or may only seek court relief in exceptional cases.

This chapter discusses how international courts operate, and how their jurisdiction is dependent on consent of states. It goes systematically through notions of jurisdiction, admissibility, interim measures, and compensation, ending with a discussion of advisory opinions and the possibilities for judicial review

State courts play a fundamental, albeit sometimes maligned, role in supporting international arbitration.This chapter examines how and when that support can be provided.The chapter begins with some procedural considerations such as the finality of the decision and the level of consideration required by courts. It then follows the life cycle of an arbitration proceedings, and take a stage by stage approach to the type of support a court may offer.Particular attention is paid to enforcing the arbitration agreement, assisting with evidentiary matters, and other steps intended to protect the integrity of the arbitration process.The chapter concludes by recognising that whilst specific examples are useful and may identify common situations, in many jurisdictions there is an inherent “catchall” power that courts can exercise.

Nowithstanding the powers of arbitral tribunals and emergency arbitrators to grant interim measures, it is generally recognized that there are compelling reasons to give parties access to national courts to grant interim relief even where the parties have subjected their disputes to arbitration. This Chapter analyses interim relief by state courts, including their powers, limitations, and types measures state courts will grant.

Chapter 6 discusses Title IX under Secretary DeVos. It begins by describing how the Department of Education quickly broke from its predecessor before recounting the two-year process of promulgating new regulations. It then turns to the first of a two-chapter deeper dive into changes made to Title IX. Here, the chapter focuses on how the new regulations narrow what counts as actionable sexual harassment and weaken oversight of schools by the Department of Education. The chapter contends that most of these changes are deeply problematic and should be reversed.

Belgian antitrust enforcement has gradually been strengthened. Applicable provisions are mostly copied from EU law, but national accents remain. Sanctions on natural persons were introduced, and abuse of relative dominance (abuse of economic dependency) was recently prohibited. Some provisions, such as the extension of the scope of EU exemptions to purely national cases, were innovative. Also creative is also the National Competition Authority (NCA)’s hybrid institutional structure, largely separating investigation and fining within one institution. No criminal antitrust sanctions currently exist. Room for improvement remains. The NCA clearly faces budgetary and human resource constraints. The power balance appears to be gradually moving towards the Auditorat. The settlement rate is very high and fines are generally low, weakening the deterrent effect of enforcement. As to private enforcement, there is a long tradition of injunctive relief, although applicants may face a high burden of proof, especially in dominance cases. Belgium duly implemented the EU Damages Directive, introducing the envisaged advantages for claimants but also the hurdles, such as the ‘passing-on defence’.

This chapter discusses the institutional set-up and procedural design of a possible future European market investigation regime. The institutional framework and procedural rules must be tailored to promote the core goals of the new instrument, namely to address competition problems that do not primarily follow from conduct, but from „features of the market“, such that a European market investigation – contrary to traditional infringement proceedings – will not be of a quasi-criminal nature, but a purely administrative proceedings, and to allow for a particular timely intervention. Against this background, the following questions are raised: How does the market investigation regime interact with Article 101 and 102 TFEU enforcement and sector inquiries at the EU level and at the national level? How can the procedure be structured such as to allow for a timely and effective intervention? What can be done to allow for a less adversarial and more participative interaction between the Commission and market actors? Furthermore, the remedial regime, voluntary commitments, the possibility for interim measures and judicial review are discussed.

This chapter examines the ECtHR’s supranational authority in detail analyzing the Court’s classical function of providing judicial review, its remedial practice as well as the new advisory jurisdiction as introduced by Protocol 16. Acknowledging that the ECHR system cannot be connected to a larger autonomous political unit, the claim is put forward is that the ECtHR nonetheless provides for a complementary layer of public authority which directly operates on individuals alongside that of domestic legal systems. The ECtHR enjoys a broad measure of autonomy over states and may circumvent the state veil by placing individuals under international protection or responsibilizing domestic authorities. The direct interaction with domestic actors not only represents part of the Court’s supranational authority but informs, at the same time, its legitimacy as the Convention community feeds on domestic actors, individuals especially, directly submitting their arguments to the Court.

This chapter discusses how international courts operate, and how their jurisdiction is dependent on consent of states. It goes systematically through notions of jurisdiction, admissibility, interim measures, and compensation, ending with a discussion of advisory opinions and the possibilities for judicial review

The USSR was one of the first states to ratify the New York Convention on the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards.1 The Soviet organizations complied with the foreign arbitral awards by strictly following the rules of contract and procedural discipline appropriate to a centralized economy. With the demise of Soviet Union, the need for procedural means of the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards in the national procedural law arose. A 1988 Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet2 officially implemented provisions of the New York Convention into national law. In 1993, the Russian Federation adopted International Commercial Arbitration Law (hereinafter ICAL) based on the UNCITRAL Model Law of 1985.3 The ICAL granted competence to arbitration associations over disputes between companies with foreign participation and those disputes between such companies and Russian companies.4 The disputes between Russian companies were not subject to the New York Convention. This was addressed by the enactment of the 2002 Russian Federation Commercial Procedure Code (CPC) on arbitral tribunals, which established a legal framework for domestic arbitration that followed international rules on the recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards.5 With the adoption of the CPC, the Russian system of international and domestic arbitration was made comprehensive.6

Subject to certain conditions, either party in investor–State arbitration proceedings can request that provisional measures be granted to protect specific rights until the arbitration tribunal has decided on the dispute. Focusing on the ICSID Convention Arbitration Rules and the UNCITRAL Rules of Arbitration, and analysing the relevant arbitration practice, Chapter 13 examines successively: (1) the notion of provisional measures; (2) the rights and interests that can be preserved through them; (3) the substantive conditions that shall be met for those measures to be granted; and (4) the procedural aspects of provisional measures and their legal force.