A Study On The Third Party In International Commercial Arbitration

With the development of the society, the international commercial arbitration practice is also in the process of continuous development, and yet it is still faced with the great challenges as the commercial disputes are getting more and more of complicated. There can be more than two parties in a commercial business. Therefore, when a third party claims his rights towards the applicant or respondent on the same subject matter during the arbitration, the questions is whether he can be allowed to participate the on-going arbitration. The debate is hereof raised. The traditional viewpoints don’t allow the third party to join or intervene in the arbitration activities, because the arbitration only solves the dispute between parties who signed arbitration agreement. Neither this arbitration agreement can be binding to the third party, nor can be interfered by the third party. But due to the traditional theory, this kind of people have to initiate another arbitration or litigation, which will not only result in higher cost to settle a disputes but also new contradictory judgment based on different arbitration or litigation. Hence it demands us to reconsider whether the system of the third party should be adopted in the arbitration.This paper introduces the systematic principle of the third party in international commercial arbitration, including the concept of third party and the theoretical dispute. Besides, it makes a comparative analysis of the third party system between different countries and arbitration institutions and puts forward the specific measures about the third party in international commercial arbitration in China. This paper consists of five chapters.Chapter 1 introduces the third party system in civil lawsuit and international commercial arbitration separately, on the basis of which it defines the third party in arbitration.Chapter 2 distinguishes the concepts of the third party in arbitration from the third party in arbitration agreement. To make a clean distinction between those two concepts can help us determine the the range of the third party in arbitration. Another part of chapter 2 introduces some relevant concepts of multi-party arbitration which may be related to the third party, including consolidation of arbitration, string arbitration and concurrent hearings.Chapter 3 summarizes theoretical disputes of the third party. After analyzing and evaluating those viewpoints of the aforesaid scholar, it raises the view of the author.Chapter 4 analyses the third party in the view of international law. It introduce the third party in arbitration in Holland, Belgium, America and UK,and relevant arbitration rules of the LCIA, the JCAA, the SIAC etc. Last but not least, it analyses current legislation in arbitration in China and rules of some important arbitral institution about third party, especially the arbitration rules in Shanghai Free Trade Zone.Chapter 5 focuses on how to build the system of third party in arbitration in China in following aspects: the scope of the third party, the form to join in the process, the composition of arbitration tribunal, and the right of the third party.