Editor's Note: The Third Seminar of the International Commercial Expert Committee of the Supreme People's Court and Reappointment Ceremony of the First Group of Expert Members was held successfully on Augest 25, 2022. Over 40 experts from more than 20 countries and regions focused on the theme of the Development, Challenges and Countermeasures of Cross-Border Commercial Disputes during the seminar. Extensive and in-depth discussions were held within the framework of four specific issues. The texts of speeches delivered by the participants would be posted on the CICC's website. 

ADDRESS AT THE THIRD SEMINAR OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL EXPERT COMMITTEE OF THE SUPREME PEOPLE’S COURT OF CHINA

William Blair

Former Judge of the High Court of England and Wales (United Kingdom)

Chief Justice Zhou Qiang, 

honorable judges, speakers and guests.

It is a pleasure to speak virtually at the Third Seminar of the International Commercial Expert Committee of the Supreme People’s Court of China.  Thank you for the invitation.

My remarks will be about the China International Commercial Court and its future.  It is now four years since the CICC was established.  This met with international interest and encouragement – as a leading international law firm White & Case put it, “As it works to gain confidence from potential parties who may be subject to its jurisdiction, the CICC represents a welcome effort in providing a wider range of dispute resolution mechanisms for consideration by participants in BRI projects”.

A distinguished international expert committee has been set up since 2018 with some leading figures from around the world in international arbitration and litigation serving on it, including a senior serving judge, Justice Steven Chong, who currently serves as a Judge of Appeal in the Singapore Court of Appeal, the highest court in the country.  As announced just now, it gives me great pleasure and honour to be reappointed as the member fr the expert committee together with other distinguished international experts. I would like to take the opportunity to extend my sincere thanks to Chief Justice Zhou Qiang and CICC, and to also congratulate my fellow experts on the re-appointments.

My own background is as a former Judge in Charge of London’s Commercial Court, which is a long-established court, with a heavy case load, attracting litigants from all over the world.  I also sit as a judge in the Qatar International Court, a newly established court set up in 2009, which is part of the Qatar judiciary and has a growing record of successful dispute resolution.

International commercial disputes take place, of course, in an international legal environment. International arbitration is well served with arbitral institutions which recognize the international nature of dispute resolution. But until the Standing International Forum of Commercial Courts was set up in 2017, there was no similar institutional framework on the court side.  

The Forum was set up to facilitate collaboration between the world’s Commercial Courts, and to promote and support best practice and the just and effective resolution of commercial disputes. I am a member of the Steering Group. The plenary meetings of the Forum have been held in London, New York, Singapore and (in October 2022) in Sydney.

China has been represented at each of these plenaries, and Judge Shen Hongyu will speak at the next plenary on the subject of an integrated system of dispute resolution: that is, Commercial Courts, Arbitration and Mediation. This has been one of the founding principles of the CICC, and her remarks will be of great interest. 

Other topics for discussion at the 2022 plenary show what currently regarded as important practical issues. One is the “complexification” of disputes, which refers to the fact well known to all in the field that disputes are becoming generally more complex – for example, in respect of complicated and easily interrupted supply chains which have been a major feature of the pandemic.

Another topic is as to disputes about jurisdiction which are a common and inevitable feature of international disputes. Another highlights a growing feature of commercial dispute resolution, that is, third party funding, which was virtually unknown as recently as a decade ago. And finally, increasingly courts will have to grapple with legal disputes which have implications for climate change, which is top of the agenda in all countries now, and where the public interest may have to take precedence over the parties’ agreements.  

Now let me turn to the CICC, and I will do have a few points that I believe will be important as the court continues to develop. But let me begin by congratulating the Chief Justice and the judges on the first four years of successful operation.

The first point is that it is to be expected that new courts set up in the international commercial environment will take a considerable time to become established. After all, the London Commercial Court was set up in 1895, and Paris has a Commercial Court that is even older, being set up in 1790 during the French Revolution.

Of course, the newly established courts in many parts of the world are demonstrating that we do not have to wait so long now – still, it is true that a new court takes time to gain the confidence of international users, and I believe that CICC can accomplish this as well.

Second, and crucially, confidence will come through international familiarity with the published rulings, judgments and decisions of the court. Of course, to begin with, there may be relatively few cases in which to give such rulings. Singapore dealt with this issue by transferring cases from its general courts to its newly established Singapore International Commercial Court so as to build up a body of case law.

Third, the rulings, judgments and decisions should be in sufficient detail so as to allow the reader to understand what the dispute was, how the court came to its decision, and why the result is correct legally. Common law courts tend to give more detail that civil law courts, but the quality of the reasoning is more important than its length.  There are some very good examples of this in the cases decided by the judges of the CICC already.

Fourth, the court and its judgments need to be accessible internationally through a website in the English language. As in most, if not all ventures now, the website is key to developing international acceptance, and again CICC has on its website.

Fifth, events like these seminars are valuable and important in maintaining momentum.

At present, we all have to deal with the global pandemic, and the effect that this has had on the freedom of movement that previously we all took for granted.  Let us hope that by the time of the fourth seminar, the pandemic is over, and we can resume the sharing of our experiences in person again. Thank you for listening to me. 

Related Links: 最高人民法院国际商事专家委员会第三届研讨会续聘专家委员代表威廉·布莱尔发言

*The original text is Chinese and has been translated into English for reference only. If there is any inconsistency or ambiguity between the Chinese version and the English version, the Chinese version shall prevail.