ESQ Legal Practice Magazine JUNE 2014 EDITION | Page 42

sub-Saharan African jurisdictions. Lagos
State recently enacted a new Arbitration
Law which is modelled along
the UNCITRAL Model Arbitration Law. It
incorporates features of the recent improvements in the UNCITRAL model law itself,
including those innovations in the Model
law which take account of developments in
Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) and the impact that these
have had on the ways in which modern
business is conducted. There are also
provisions which allow arbitrators to grant
emergency interim relief. It also incorporates the very essential twin pillars of
“judicial assistance” and “limited court
intervention”. Ghana and Rwanda have also
recently enacted modern arbitration
legislation based on the UNICTRAL model
law.
The second factor will be the proliferation
of African arbitration institutions. In Lagos,
for example, we had been more familiar
with the Nigeria branch of the UK's
Chartered Institute of Arbitrators as well as
the Regional Centre for International
Commercial Arbitration Lagos, set up
under the auspices of the Asian-African
Legal Consultative Organisation (AALCO).
Today there are a number of other arbitration institutions sharing the institutional
arbitration space, such as the Lagos Court
of Arbitration, and even some with
specialist focus like the Maritime
Arbitrators Association of Nigeria (MAAN).
Elsewhere in Africa, you have the Kigali
International Arbitration Centre (KIAC), the
Ghana Arbitration Centre (GAC) and the
LCIA-MIAC, which is the product of
an agreement between the
Government of Mauritius, the
Mauritius International
Arbitration Centre Limited and
the London Court of
International Arbitration
(LCIA), just to name a few.
A third trend is the growing
awareness among stakeholders – lawyers, Judges
and business organisations
- about the important role
that arbitration plays in
commercial dispute
resolution and legal risk
management. You see
it reflected in the
growing practice of
establishing court
annexed ADR
facilities which
also offer
arbitration

42 I EsQ legal practice

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