NOTES ON ARBITRABILITY

Focus on objective arbitrability

Abstract

According to the principle of Kompetenz-Kompetenz, an arbitral tribunal is vested with the authority to decide upon
its jurisdiction with respect to any given dispute. In making such a decision, it will review the respective arbitration
agreement and it will consider general legal principles affecting its jurisdiction. This decision will inevitably include
an assessment as to whether the dispute at hand is arbitrable. The arbitral tribunal's determination, however, is not
necessarily final. It might be subject to judicial review. In a motion to set aside the tribunal's determination or during
a challenge of the final award at the recognition and enforcement stage, a court may take a `second look' at the
arbitrability of a particular matter. The nature of such judicial review has been the subject of extensive scholarly
debate in the past.1 Therefore, when parties and their respective lawyers consider dispute resolution mechanisms for
a corporate dispute, they first need to determine whether the dispute is arbitrable or not. As a general rule, corporate
disputes are arbitrable. In this text the authors will analyze the objective arbitratibility from comparative perspective
and give some comments regarding the Law on International Commercial Arbitration of |Republic of Macedonia.