Introduction
Arbitration has long been valued as an entirely voluntary
process. In an ideal international commercial arbitration equally
sided parties may freely decide to arbitrate as well as agree on
innumerable options of how exactly possible disputes shall be
resolved: institution or ad hoc arbitration, seat and language of
arbitration, venues and means of proceedings, number and
description of arbitrators, allocation of costs, etc.
Enjoying such procedural freedom, parties frequently decide that
one party saves the option to refer disputes either to arbitration
or to state court whilst the other party is entitled to bring the
disputes exclusively to state court.