International and Comparative Business Law and Public Policy – serie

The open access publication of this book has been published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation.With little warning, COVID-19 quickly escalated into a generational crisis, creating sustained havoc seen perhaps only in past cases of war, attack, and natural disasters. In the bedlam of the early months, health, science, political, and economic communities were hit with sudden force, required to quickly shift and rearrange the normal order of work. In arbitration, leaders took imperfect information to make dramatic decisions. In process and procedure, arbitral institutions, arbitrators, legal counsel, and clients were swept into this turmoil. In some cases, bold initiatives, still in design and testing, were quickly put into service, upsetting norms and traditions and the very notions of traditional process. The Impact of COVID on International Disputes includes contributions from legal practitioners and academics, takes a fresh look at issues addressed in international arbitration during the COVID-19 pandemic, gathering best practices, additional perspective and predictions based on current practices that will help parties, legal counsel and arbitrators in the future.

The open access publication of this book has been published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation. Blockchain is the first global mechanism for the transfer and storage of value. Despite being conceived as an alternative to state and law, the technology and its use cases raise many legal questions, most notably, regarding jurisdiction and applicable law with respect to transactions and assets recorded on the blockchain. The issue is complex given the decentralised nature of the network. In this volume, academics and practitioners from various countries try to provide detailed answers to these questions as they relate to crypto-assets, cryptocurrencies, crypto derivatives, stablecoins, Central Bank Digital Currencies and Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs), as well as specific transactions and issues, such as property rights, secured transactions, smart contracts and bankruptcy. With specific chapters on national approaches (Germany, Japan, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, United States), the volume explores the need and possibility for legal harmonisation of these issues through global fora, such as the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) UNIDROIT.

The hospitality and construction industries are international economic drivers, with complex economic relationships and diverse legal issues. Cases and rulings are not static and move along a continuum in time and context. The evolution of legal agreements and disputes in hospitality and construction are not confined to any sort of strict schedule.This volume addresses the many cases and experiences of parties, counsel and arbitrators during the pandemic, and discusses issues such as key contract provisions, the impact of the COVID pandemic on investment treaties, and access to arbitral institutions.

The FATF challenges traditional axioms and patently illustrates the dynamics of the international legal system. This book fills a significant gap in academic literature by studying FATF’s legal nature and its responsibilities in the international legal system as an organisation with public authority. It makes a bold argument that the FATF has gradually evolved into an international organisation, addressing international law and international organisation law discourse, combining theory and practice.This book’s analytical framework can be applied to any organisation whose legal nature remains undefined, attempting to provide clarity and legal certainty in the international legal system’s architecture of the 21st century.