On 19 November 2026, UNCITRAL and Gaillard Banifatemi Shelbaya Disputes will host a joint Colloquium in Vienna on “The New York Convention and Sovereign States: Recognition of Awards and State Responsibility”. Celebrating the 60th anniversary of UNCITRAL and the 10th anniversary of the New York Convention Guide website (the companion to the New York Convention Guide, which had been launched by Professor Emmanuel Gaillard as expert for UNCITRAL), the Colloquium will, for the first time, address head-on the questions of compliance with, and breaches of, the 1958 New York Convention.
After opening remarks by Anna Joubin-Bret, UNCITRAL’s Secretary, and Founding Partner Yas Banifatemi, the first panel featuring Paul Key KC, Professor Diane Desierto, Judge Dominique Hascher and Professor Franco Ferrari, and moderated by Founding Partner Benjamin Siino, will discuss “Recurring Issues Affecting the Recognition of Awards”. The panel will address key issues affecting the recognition of New York Convention Awards, including State sovereign immunity and the jurisdiction of domestic courts to recognize and enforce awards, transnational issue estoppel and comity, stay of recognition and enforcement, and security under Article VI of the New York Convention. The panel will also explore whether a jurisdictional hierarchy exists among national legal systems reviewing arbitral awards.
The second panel, featuring Anna Joubin-Bret, Judge Fabienne Schaller and Andrés Jana, and moderated by Founding Partner Yas Banifatemi, will address “Breaches of the New York Convention by State Parties”. It will examine the case law on the non-enforcement of arbitral awards under the New York Convention and consider whether every incorrect interpretation of the New York Convention amounts to a breach of the Convention, as well as the threshold for establishing State liability under the New York Convention.
The morning will end with a presentation by Founding Partners Yas Banifatemi and Benjamin Siino of the New York Convention Guide website, which provides information on the implementation of the Convention and aims to promote its uniform and effective application worldwide.
The third panel, featuring Professor Christoph Schreuer, Professor Atilla Tanzi, Ganna Yudkivska and Professor Holger Hestermeyer, moderated by Judith Knieper, UNCITRAL Legal Officer, will examine “Judicial Remedies for Breaches of the New York Convention—Available International Fora and Their Comparative Advantages”. It will explore the situations where non-recognition or non-enforcement of arbitral awards may give rise to a State’s international responsibility, the admissibility thresholds before Investor-State tribunals, the European Court of Human Rights and the International Court of Justice, and the relationship between the Convention and other sources of international responsibility. The discussion will also compare the advantages, limitations, and effectiveness of these fora in providing judicial remedies.
Andrés Jana will then present ICCA’s Guide to the Interpretation of the 1958 New York Convention.
The fourth panel, featuring Professor Christian Tams, Professor Michael Waibel and Professor Chiara Giorgetti, moderated by Partner Yuri Parkhomenko, will address “Non-judicial Remedies for Breaches of the New York Convention”. The panel will examine alternative, non-judicial, mechanisms for encouraging compliance with arbitral awards, including diplomatic pressure, retorsion, countermeasures and other lawful forms of pressure, the economic and reputational consequences of non-compliance, post-award settlement negotiations, and the role of international organizations in promoting compliance.
A special Guest Panel featuring Professor Luca Radicati di Brozolo, Gaston Kenfack Douajni and Professor Hugo Barbier, moderated by Judge Dominique Hascher, will discuss the “Codification of International Arbitration Rules”.
The event will take place at the Theophil Ballroom, Anantara Palais Hansen, in Vienna.
Please click here to register and here to view event program details.
The New York Convention Guide
In 2010, UNCITRAL requested the assistance of two experts, Professor Emmanuel Gaillard and Professor George Bermann, to prepare a Guide on the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, 1958 (New York) (the “New York Convention”). The UNCITRAL Guide on the New York Convention aims to promote the uniform and effective interpretation and application of the Convention with a view to limiting the risk that State practice might diverge from its spirit. The Guide was presented to the Commission and published in 2016.
The online platform supplements the Guide by making available case law implementing the New York Convention from multiple common law and civil law jurisdictions. By monitoring the interpretation and application of the New York Convention by States, as well as the requirements and procedures put in place by States for enforcing an award under the New York Convention, the website contributes to the dissemination of information on the New York Convention and limits the risk of legal disharmony in this field. By assembling case law and legislation from a number of jurisdictions on a publicly accessible platform, it will assist judges, arbitrators, practitioners, academics and Government officials to use more efficiently resources relating to the New York Convention.
The platform is meant to reflect the evolution of case law on the New York Convention and, therefore, it is updated on a rolling basis.
Gaillard Banifatemi Shelbaya Disputes continues to lead this initiative with a community of contributors worldwide, furthering the work undertaken in 2010 by Professor Emmanuel Gaillard, Yas Banifatemi and Benjamin Siino, in partnership with the UNCITRAL Secretariat, Anna Joubin-Bret, Renaud Sorieul, and Corinne Montineri.
