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.

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.