Enforcement of foreign Arbitral Awards in Rwanda

Abstract

The law relating to arbitration, in Rwanda, is limited to commercial matters. Studies indicate that parties to a dispute choose arbitration, as opposed to the ordinary court system, because they are interested in a quick settlement and an easy procedure of enforcement of an arbitral award. Available literature indicates that as early as 1968, enforcement of foreign awards had been a matter of concern so much so that inter-state legal instruments relating to the matter had been put in place, especially in Europe. Establishing an international convention relating to enforcement and its coming into force in 1979, notwithstanding, “performance of awards” is still a matter settled in courts of law. A party against whose favour an arbitral award is decided, would not voluntarily welcome the enforcement of an “unwelcome” award unless some legal force looms on the horizon. A legal process denoted as exequatur – the enforcement formula – determined by a judge at the level of the Commercial High Court (CHC) in Rwanda is the central theme of this work. This judicial procedure however, is resorted to in the event of failure of enforcement through the legal, contractual established procedure of „amicable execution‟ of a foreign arbitral award. In fact, exequatur ranks behind „amicable execution‟ and „reciprocity‟ as guarantees of enforcement. Otherwise, how would a research best explain the phenomena that the CHC heard only one case, in the period that greater than seven (7) years since the 25th of April 2008, yet KIAC has a record of 70% of the awards it rendered having been enforced? This work reveals that businesses, in Rwanda, ought to resort to arbitration, therefore, since exequatur is not widely used implying the success of “amicable enforcement” of foreign arbitral wards. Besides, „compulsory executions‟ is either a second or third alternative to “amicable enforcement”.