Law

Mentors Group CommentsResponsesDr. Jhones inquired how arbitration fits in with Sharia law. And since there is only version of Sharia Law, does it vary between Arabic countries and non-Arabic onesAs defined, arbitration is an established method for resolving disputes in international commercial agreements as well as situations where States are parties to the dispute proceedings. Arbitration fits in with the Sharia law basically because of the principle of adherence to justice. Sharia law or any law for that matter has as its main objective for creation and implementation is justice and that is what arbitration is all about.

Arbitration as was posed in the proposal differs in Arabic countries and non-Arabic countries because of culture and religion thus while international law on arbitration is being followed by different countries, their implementating rules and guidelines will be different because of the influence of culture and religion. A case in point is KSA which although introducing arbitration in the country, it has limited its implementation such as by restricting the enforcement of the provisions of the New York convention. Dr. Henry commented that it is unclear how the enforcement of the New York convention would not suffice.The enforcement of the New York convention would not suffice because the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia itself restricted the enforcement of the provisions of the convention.Dr. Bruno inquired how international best practices fit in into the Saudi Arabia legal structure.The proposal aims to look into international best practices relevant to arbitration with the purpose of making a comparative study between the practices of the countries cited. Since the position is that KSA is not ready to become a seat of international arbitration because of religion and culture, the aim of looking into the best practices is not to show how these fit into the legal structure of KSA but to actually show the opposite.Dr. Bruno asked what is the relationship between arbitration in Saudi Arabia law and the place of Sharia law within itIt is important to note that Sharia law influences legal codes of Islamic countries such as KSA.

Thus Sharia law is part and parcel of Saudi Arabia laws. As mentioned above, arbitration fits in with Sharia law basically because of the principle of adherence to justice which of course since Sharia law is actually incorporated in Saudi Arabia laws is also part of the latter.Dr. Jhones commented that the methodology of collecting data is very vague.As written in the proposal, a comparative study will be conducted among the countries that were cited. Said study will be entirely paper-based, thus, data will be taken from the various resources which are available through the use of iTools such online encyclopedias and other academic publications. Data shall also be gathered from libraries primarily law journals and constitutions of the countries cited.

Furthermore, in order to compare the laws of said countries, comparative law shall be used which as mentioned in the proposal is a method for comparing different legal systems. The WEFT QDA software will also be used for qualitative analysis of the date gathered.Dr. Bruno inquired about the effect of arbitral procedure if Saudi is chosen as a seat of international arbitrationAgain, it is important to note that the thesis of the proposal is that KSA cannot effectively become the seat of international arbitration because the practice of arbitration has not been successful as compared with other countries which have adopted arbitration proceedings due to the formers restrictions on religion and culture.Dr Jhones asked the following questions What is the reason behind the choice of non-Islamic countries What have you not chosen European countries which are non-Islamic as wellIn Section four of the proposal, the following non-Islamic countries were mentioned Singapore, United States and China. It must be noted that after the enumeration the words among others was also written. Thus, the selection is not limited to the said countries. In Section two of the proposal it was said that, A detailed evaluation of the facts surrounding arbitration legislations in KSA as compared to the selected countries such as Singapore, China, America, Switzerland and Hong Kong will be performed. Thus a European country will also be part of the study.