INTRODUCTION

General

Art. 53 is the first of three Articles of Section 6 of Chapter IV of the Convention. Section 6 is entitled “Recognition and Enforcement of the Award”. Art. 54 deals more specifically with recognition and enforcement. Art. 55 deals with the immunity of a foreign State from execution.

Art. 53 addresses the effects of a final award on the parties to ICSID arbitration. It deals with three issues. One is the finality of an ICSID award: once an ICSID award has been rendered, the parties may not seek a remedy on the same dispute in another forum. Another issue is the absence of any external review of an ICSID award: ICSID's review system, as offered by Arts. 49(2), 50, 51 and 52, is exhaustive and self-contained. The third issue is the binding force of an award: non-compliance by a party with an award would be a breach of a legal obligation.

Other instruments governing international adjudication contain similar provisions concerning the binding force and finality of judgments and awards. Examples are the Statute of the International Court of Justice (Arts. 59, 60), the International Law Commission's 1958 Model Rules on Arbitral Procedure (Arts. 30, 32), the 1976 UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules (Art. 32(2)), the 1985 UNCITRAL Model Law (Art. 35(1)), the 1998 International Chamber of Commerce Rules of Arbitration (Art. 28(6)), the 1996 Commercial Arbitration and Mediation Centre for the Americas' Arbitration Rules (Art. 29(1)) and the 1998 Arbitration Rules of the London Court of International Arbitration (Art. 26.9).