ICCA Hosts a New York Convention Roadshow for the Argentinian Judiciary
Report written by Emilie de Haas
On 6 October 2021, as part of its Judicial Outreach Programme, ICCA held the second in a series of New York Convention webinars tailored for Latin American judiciaries. The event was specially conceived for the judiciary of Argentina and was held in Spanish. It was led by ICCA Governing Board and Judiciary Committee Member Mr. Andrés Jana, Partner at Bofill Mir & Alvarez Jana, who assembled a stellar line-up of speakers, composed of current and former Argentinian judges, on the topics of international commercial arbitration and the New York Convention.
Mr. Jana kicked off the session with a brief welcome and introduction to ICCA’s activities, before giving the floor to Dra. María Susana Najurieta, professor of private international law at the University of Buenos Aires and former judge of the Federal Civil and Commercial Court of Appeals, to offer an introduction to international commercial arbitration in Argentina. Mr. Jana followed with a presentation on recognition and enforcement of arbitration agreements and foreign arbitral awards under the New York Convention, during which he spoke of the history and success of the New York Convention to date, and provided an article-by-article analysis of the Convention.
Following this overview on the New York Convention, Dra. María Elsa Uzal, professor of private international law at the University of Buenos Aires and President of the National Commercial Court of Appeals, addressed the judges on the interaction between the New York Convention, the Panama Convention and Argentina’s Law on International Commercial Arbitration, enacted by Law No. 27.449 and in force since 3 August 2018. In closing, Dr. Carlos Rosenkrantz, Vice-President of the Supreme Court of Argentina, offered his insight on the role of Argentinian judges in enforcement proceedings before national courts in Argentina.
The judges in attendance were provided with a digital and physical copy of ICCA’s Guide to the Interpretation of the 1958 New York Convention, available in 26 languages, including Spanish.
The following day, ICCA hosted a second webinar on the enforcement of arbitration agreements and foreign arbitral awards in Argentina in collaboration with the Buenos Aires office of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) and the University of Buenos Aires (UBA). The event was open to a wider audience, comprised of Argentinian students, practitioners and academics. Moderated by Mr. Jana and Mr. Julian Bordaçahar, PCA Legal Counsel and Representative in the Argentine Republic, the speakers of the first webinar returned for a second evening. They were joined by Florencia Lebensohn, adjunct professor of international commercial arbitration and public international law at the University of Buenos Aires, who spoke specifically on the enforcement of arbitration agreements under the New York Convention and Argentina’s arbitration law, as well as Dr. Guido S. Tawil, ICCA Advisory Board Member and independent arbitrator, who addressed the audience on the enforcement of foreign arbitral awards under these instruments.
ICCA thanks Mr. Jana for facilitating the two events and is grateful to the PCA and UBA for their collaboration on the second webinar. It is equally grateful to the speakers for their time and meaningful interventions during both events. ICCA hopes to continue carrying out its Roadshow programme in Spanish in other Latin American jurisdictions in the new year.
For more details on ICCA’s New York Convention Roadshows, please consult our Judicial Outreach page.