Abstract:
Ethiopia ratified the 1958 New York Convention on February 13, 2020, and enacted a new
arbitration law, known as Arbitration and Conciliation Working Procedure Proclamation No.
1237/2021, on April 2, 2021, to reform its arbitration law in line with the current global trend.
The new law incorporates numerous provisions internationally recognized for modern
commercial arbitration rules. However, there are still some flaws and legal problems with the
provisions governing challenging arbitral awards. The main objective of this study is to examine
the current Ethiopian legal regime governing challenging arbitral awards to reveal its legal
gaps and to propose necessary relevant reforms. To achieve this goal, the researcher employed a
doctrinal qualitative research method for data collection, analysis, and interpretation,
essentially focusing on examining pertinent provisions of the new Ethiopian arbitration law in
comparison with the UNCITRAL Model Law and the 1958 New York Convention on the
Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards. The study's main findings revealed
that the new Ethiopian Arbitration Law inserted numerous provisions that allowed a losing party
and a third party to challenge arbitral awards before a regular court via a brought-before
cassation bench, raising challenges against arbitral awards, setting aside awards, and refusing
to execute awards, which can lead to unjustified court intervention in arbitration processes.
Furthermore, the study discovered that, unlike the NYC and the UNCITRAL Model Law, the new
law expanded the defense available to aggrieved parties by inserting additional grounds for
setting aside and refusing execution of foreign arbitral awards. It also found that the lack of
specific time limits for the enforcement of foreign arbitral awards in Ethiopia constitutes a legal
loophole. Against this backdrop, the study strongly recommends that the Ethiopian government
will have to amend the provisions governing the challenge of arbitral awards by adopting the
internationally recognized legislative standards set out in international arbitration instruments
to minimize the modes of challenging arbitral awards and limit the defenses available to losing
parties.
