The Contemporary Law of International Watercourses: Some AspectKernpunkte der Revision des 12. Kapitels des IPRG (Marco Stacher & Christian Oetikers)

The Swiss Federal Council prepared a draft amendment of Chapter 12 of the Swiss Private International Law Statute, which is the lex arbitri for international arbitrations seated in Switzerland (“Chapter 12”). The draft aims to update Chapter 12, which has proven to work well in practice. Many proposed amendments, therefore, do not aim to change the substance of the law, but to make the statute user-friendlier. In particular, the draft proposes to enact certain key features of the case law of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court and to detail certain rules rather than use references to other statutes. Certain proposed amendments, however, are controversial, e.g., that arbitral tribunals in certain instances may bindingly decide on their fees. Proposals of this type may well not be included in the updated draft, which is prepared based on the feedback received so far and which is expected for later in 2018.