I say 1958 was a year the international arbitration world took a remarkable move. The UN and other parties interested in international arbitration embarked an international convention to recognize and enforce foreign arbitral awards. The convention was signed in New York, The New York Convention to Recognize and Enforce Foreign Arbitral Awards (NYC), and it became the most popular convention in the whole wide world. The major trading nations, those that appear to be antagonistic have signed it without any kind of reservation. Thus far, round about 150 countries have signed and ratified it. Even, it is hailed as the “successful convention drafted by the UN.”

In 2002, when I was doing my undergraduate degree, our contract law teacher started talking about period of limitation and its effect. I neither had a concept nor an argument about period of limitation under art 1845 of the civil code. I attended the whole class, tried to understand arguments, justifications and ration d’être of the period of limitation. Mulugeta Mengist, in his monograph says that period of limitation is used to ensure certainty and predictability in transactions.

It will be unwise to begin the essay without introducing the reader about injunction in Ethiopian Civil Procedure Code (CPC). Injunction is one form of provisional measure ordered by a competent judicial organ to the requesting party. Robert Allen Sedler, a famous author on Ethiopian civil procedure, says that it may be necessary to make provision for the protection of the parties and the maintenance of the property in dispute pending the final determination of the case. The court is vested with exclusive power to issue provisional measures until the final judgement.

Parties’ freedom to agree on any matter extends to agree to resolve their dispute either judicial litigation or arbitration. Arbitration is a system of dispute settlement where by disputants takes their case before arbitrators of their own choice. The civil code defines it “as a contract whereby the parties to a dispute entrust its solution to a third party, the arbitrator, who undertakes to settle the dispute in accordance with the principles of law.” (Art 3325(1)).

A principal-agent relationship is like a tripartite contract where the agent enters into any legal transaction on behalf of the principal. Art 2199 of the Civil Code defines agency as “a contract whereby a person, the agent, agrees with another person, the principal, to represent him and perform on his behalf one or several legally binding acts.” Such an authority can be conferred by court or by agreement of the parties.

Dispute settlement modalities, other than judicial litigation, were known even before the era of codification. They were continuously practiced as a traditional form of settling grievances. It had different names, like shimgelina, giligil. Irrespective of the nomenclature, each of these institutions sought to reach at amicable solution between the disputants.

The Wednesday news report on Reporter News Paper Amharic about insurance companies restricting the commission paid to insurance agents is a dreadful, despicable thing. It shows what happens once a government fails to effectively and successfully to restrain firms.

In an old English case [Richardson v. Melish, 2Bing. 228(251) Court of Common Pleas, England (1824)] Judge Burrough stated that public policy is “unruly horse and once you get astride to it, you do not know where it will carry you.”  This judge has sufficient reason for saying public policy is unruly horse: case law and scholars have tried to define public policy; but none succeeded in giving a concise, precise, and short definition. Its concept remains controversial.

The case between Salini Costruttori S.p.A v. AAWSA, ICC Case 10623, is very interesting. What makes the case appealing is the Ethiopian Supreme Court’s interference in the proceeding and the consequent explanation given by the arbitrator tribunal. By the application of AAWSA, the Ethiopian party, a respondent in the case, the Ethiopian court was convinced that the international arbitral panel was partial; hence, the court ordered the tribunal to cease the proceeding. 

I was reading an article on Oromia Law Journal about the degree of court’s control on arbitration under the Ethiopian Arbitration Law. The writer divided the control into three parts: control via appeal (Art 351 of Civ.Pro.Code), set aside (Art 356 of Civ.Pro.Code) and homologation (Art 319(2) of Civ.Pro.Code). He said that courts unfairly arbitration via the avenue of appeal; set aside seems narrow and homologation isn’t included in the Amharic Version of the code, which is senseless; and must be redefined to set the standards of homologation under the Ethiopian Arbitration Law.