Arbitration Proceedings Before the Kigali International Arbitration Centre (KIAC)

Abstract

Rwanda as a country that has been frequently top rated in the World Bank Doing Business Report and increasingly becoming an investments destination better understands how arbitration is triumphing as a mechanism of settling commercial disputes, and therefore promoting this dispute resolution mechanism is a value addition, has, in 2010, established an arbitration institution—the Kigali International Arbitration Centre (the “Centre”). The statistics of disputes administered by the Centre or settled under its rules both in terms of numbers and value clearly indicate that the Centre is still in its infancy, but the recent move by the Government of Rwanda to refer all disputes involving itself or its instrumentalities to the Centre with hundreds of million dollar project documents containing the Centre and its rules in their dispute resolution clauses as well as the increased interests of the Rwandan business community in arbitration as a dispute resolution mechanism clearly suggests that the Centre is gaining a momentum. The prospects of having the Centre administering high value and complex commercial disputes ranging from energy and infrastructure project financing to sophisticated corporate disputes makes it more relevant to consider the Centre’s arbitration rules to ascertain whether they embrace cardinal principles and best practices in international commercial arbitration. In this vein, this paper discusses arbitration proceedings under the rules of the Centre from the commencement of arbitration to the rendering of an award. It argues that despite a few gaps, the rules of the Centre are quite relevant to the modern commercial arbitration as they are modeled to the rules of international arbitration centres with renown such as ICC and LCIA, and embrace cardinal principles of international arbitration such as party autonomy and increased party’s control over arbitration process from appointment of arbitrators, choice of the seat to the applicable rules of procedure and restricted intervention of state courts. Further and while the author does not pretend to equate the Centre to other arbitration institutions that have been in existence for decades, it is submitted that the Centre is (at least from its rules) a modernized arbitration institution that can administer the arbitration of high value and complex commercial disputes without compromising the parties expectations.