International Commercial Arbitration in African Countries: Development Prospects

The development of modern international society is directly linked to the development of various legal institutions. It is considered that the best and popular way to settle international disputes between commercial companies of different countries, foreign investors and states is international arbitration. The legal nature of the Institute of international commercial arbitration (ICA) as a special mechanism of solving commercial disputes at the international level, the peculiar characteristic features, for example, if one party to the arbitration is the state, the dispute does not cease to wear the private-law nature, because the second side is necessarily a person of private law, and subject to the arbitration process must be a property dispute. The key advantages of the ICA over the “internal civil process” are as follows: international arbitration is independent from the state and is completely neutral, consensual and flexible; the terms of the proceedings are shorter than in national courts. The purpose of this study is to study the legislative regulation of international commercial arbitration in African countries, to define and identify the concept of formation and division of legal regulation of ICA in Africa, as well as to consider the sources of legal regulation on the example of African member states of the organization for the harmonization of business law in Africa (OHADA) and African countries that have implemented the rules of the UNCITRAL model law on international commercial arbitration of 1985 in their own internal laws on arbitration.