The chapter provides an industry overview of how international commercial arbitration (ICA) is conducted in the shipping and maritime sector. It also focuses on the global hot spots for maritime arbitration, the practical and legal advantages of maritime arbitration, and the drafting of arbitration agreements. A global and ever-expanding activity, sea trade accounts for more than 80% of the volume of global trade and more than 70% of its total value. Shipping and maritime disputes have a long and developed history with international arbitration. Benefiting from this historical international interplay, the chapter provides fundamental insight into the practical and legal characteristics, issues and advantages of a uniquely global industry’s arbitration structure.
This new collective work captures the development of ICA from different perspectives and uniquely brings together the ideas, suggestions and perspectives of in-house counsel as the most important users of ICA, along with outside counsel, arbitrators themselves and major arbitration organizations who all help provide the service.
