[PODCAST] International Arbitration and Private International Law: In Conversation with Professor Anselmo Reyes SC

‘Arbitration in commercial matters is seen to be, perceived to be, more effective from the point of view of enforcement than a judgment …  and that's what makes and is making arbitration, international commercial arbitration especially attractive.’

When one is faced with a complex, multi-jurisdictional dispute, many questions may arise: Which court is the dispute to be resolved in? What law is applicable? Can the award rendered in one country be enforced in another? In response to these pertinent questions, Professor Reyes says that international arbitration is the answer.

Professor Anselmo Reyes SC is a world-renowned international arbitrator, International Judge of the Singapore International Commercial Court (SICC), a member of the International Expert Committee of the China International Commercial Court and a member of various arbitration institutions across London, China, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore. In Michaelmas Term 2025, Isaac Tan, a Podcast Editor of the Oxford University Undergraduate Law Journal had the opportunity to sit down with Professor Reyes and discuss the principles of international arbitration; arbitrators’ duties; comparisons between the jurisdictions of the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and Singapore; and the future of private international law. 

Professor Reyes explains that the strength of international arbitration lies within a multilateral treaty known as the 1958 New York Convention. As a matter of public international law, signatories to the Convention are obliged to enforce arbitral awards rendered in other signatory states. This allows judgments rendered in different countries and under different legal jurisdictions to be enforced in any signatory state. In the context of multi-jurisdictional deals, international commercial arbitration has become an effective way to ensure a unified dispute resolution model while still providing flexibility in enforcement. 

In comparing the common law jurisdictions of the UK, Hong Kong and Singapore, Professor Reyes explores how they have conformed to the New York Convention and UNCITRAL Model Law in different ways. He hopes that countries like Singapore will allow more substantive review of arbitral awards in court, thus allowing courts like the SICC to develop a line of jurisprudence for international commercial law. Decisions like these could make Singapore more attractive as a jurisdiction when dealmakers are drafting arbitration clauses in multi-jurisdictional deals. Professor Reyes also critiques recent UK court judgments in relation to international arbitration as potentially diminishing the attractiveness of the UK as a jurisdiction. 

As a result of the way legal education is structured, law students think of the law in silos, disaggregating various areas of law, such as contract law, tort law, public international law, and private international law, from each other. Professor Reyes considers that the increasingly complex nature of disputes will require us to detach ourselves from this mindset. Instead, we have to be prepared to apply legal principles across differentiated areas of law. 

‘[We have to] develop the tools, the means, the analysis, the approach to dealing with the problems of concern today, and that may mean riding between domestic law and private international law principles and international law, public international law … we must not draw up silos.’

The episode is available in audio format here.

A transcript of the episode is available here.