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国际商事仲裁中的证据问题研究

Evidence in International Commercial Arbitration

【作者】 崔起凡

【导师】 丁伟;

【作者基本信息】 华东政法大学 , 国际法, 2011, 博士

【摘要】 国际商事仲裁已经成为国际商事争议解决的优选方式。证据问题因直接关系到裁判结果,是国际商事仲裁实践中的核心问题。在各国仲裁立法和大多仲裁规则对仲裁证据问题涉及不多的情况下,国际商事仲裁实践中当事人尤其是仲裁庭在确定和适用证据规则方面往往发挥非常重要的作用。在国际商事仲裁规则的确定与适用中,以下矛盾关系的平衡成为关键,直接影响到国际商事仲裁作为争议解决机制的优点的发挥:首先,不同法律文化的平衡。国际商事仲裁的当事人、代理人以及仲裁员分别来自不同的法系或国家,而各国在证据文化上冲突比较大,如何平衡不同法律文化之间的冲突必然成为国际商事仲裁中证据事项的处理的关键问题之一。其次,效率与公平的平衡。关于国际商事仲裁效率与公平的关系,理论上存在着不同的观点。事实上,在仲裁实践包括证据事项的处理中,两者的兼顾非常重要,许多仲裁规则明文强调两者不可偏废,否则国际商事交易的当事人会丧失对国际商事仲裁的信心。最后,规则的灵活性与可预见性的平衡。灵活性是国际商事仲裁的本质特征,不过,可预见性的缺乏以及合理预期不能得到保护会让当事人对国际商事仲裁望而却步。因此,在当今的国际商事仲裁领域,一些专门的仲裁证据规则不仅已然被编纂,而且发挥着不可忽视的作用。本文主要以不同法律文化的平衡、效率与公平的平衡以及规则的灵活性与可预见性的平衡为视角,审视国际商事仲裁中的证据问题。本文除引言和结语外,共有七章,二十万多字。第一章,“国际商事仲裁证据规则的编纂与发展趋势”。其一,本章探讨了国际商事仲裁证据规则的渊源具有多元性和多层次性。其二,它阐释了在国际商事仲裁领域,专门仲裁证据规则的编纂逐渐受到重视,其中尤其是国际律师协会(IBA)1999年制订的《IBA证据规则》具有里程碑意义,为国际商事仲裁证据规则的国际化与协调化作出巨大贡献。国际商事仲裁证据规则的编纂出现了软法化趋势,现存的证据规则主要是以软法形式编纂的专门仲裁证据规则。其三,由于国际商事仲裁领域存在着反对制订仲裁证据规则的观点,本章进一步反思了国际商事仲裁是否需要专门的证据规则。最后,从整体上看,各种渊源的仲裁证据规则出现了协调化趋势。第二章,“国际商事仲裁中证据规则的确定与适用”。其一,本章阐述了当事人和仲裁庭在确定与适用仲裁证据规则中的作用;其二,它探讨了当事人和仲裁庭确定证据规则的自由的界限。它受到仲裁程序准据法的强制性规则,其中主要是正当程序条款的限制。另外,由于仲裁庭缺乏强制性权力,证据事项的处理离不开法院的介入,当事人和仲裁庭处理证据事项的自由也受到仲裁地法院规则的影响。其三,它论述了为什么国内证据法不应严格适用于国际商事仲裁,同时论证了在客观上仲裁参与人所在各国国内证据法仍然对该国国际商事仲裁证据规则的确定与适用产生巨大影响。其四,它以《IBA证据规则》为例论述了国际商事仲裁证据软法所发挥的作用,尽管大多仲裁没有明确约定适用《IBA证据规则》,《IBA证据规则》仍然对国际商事仲裁证据规则的确定与适用产生一定影响。第三章,“国际商事仲裁中书证的出示”。书证尤其是同期书证已被许多仲裁界人士认可为最重要的证据形式,而书证的出示是不同法律文化之间存在冲突比较大的领域之一。其一,本章论述了国际商事仲裁中书证出示的一般问题,包括不同的书证来源对书证出示的影响与产生的问题,书证出示时间问题,以及书证出示涉及的保密性问题。其二,它讨论了国际商事仲裁中仲裁庭要求当事人进行书证出示的权力以及出示的范围和条件。它在阐释了两大法系在书证出示方面存在着较大的法律文化冲突的基础上,重点探讨了国际商事仲裁中仲裁庭命令当事人出示其持有的书证的出示,并阐述了以《IBA证据规则》为代表的国际标准化实践中,仲裁庭依当事人请求或自行命令另一方当事人进行书证出示的范围和条件。另外,还探讨了当事人拒绝执行出示书证的命令的救济。其三,它进一步探讨电子文件的出示问题。随着现代商业中电子技术的普遍应用,大量证据是以电子文件的形式生成,电子文件具有容易复制和修改、难以彻底删除等特点,而且电子文件的出示造成更为沉重的成本和负担,尽管国际商事仲裁书证出示的基本原则同样适用于电子文件的出示,这仍然对国际商事仲裁实践带来一些新的问题;继而探讨了电子文件的“出示范围”、“费用承担”、“出示形式”等一系列问题。第四章,“国际商事仲裁中言辞证据的提供”,涉及言辞证据包括证人证言、专家证据的准备与提供,它是不同法律文化之间冲突比较大的另一领域。其一,本章阐述了在国际商事仲裁一般实践中,证人的提供、证人书面证言、以及证人出庭作证等方面不同法律文化的冲突与融合。其二,它探讨了专家证人的资格,仲裁庭在指定专家证人的自由裁量权,行使该权力是否、以及什么情况下会违反正当程序,书面和口头专家证据的准备与提供。其三,它分析了两种专家证人模式各自的利弊,在国际商事仲裁中如何克服相应弊端,以及两种模式共存的原因。第五章,“国际商事仲裁取证的法院协助”。仲裁庭不具有强制性权力,当对方当事人或第三人拒绝提供仲裁所需证据时,法院是否能提供有效的协助成为关键,这直接关系到相关案件在事实认定上的准确性,甚至影响仲裁地作为国际商事仲裁中心的声誉。其一,本章论述了国际商事仲裁取证的法院协助的一般理论问题,涉及作为法院提供协助的理论基础即国际商事仲裁的性质、国际商事仲裁取证需要法院介入的必要性,各国支持仲裁的政策与理念,以及法院协助国际商事仲裁取证制度的价值取向。其二,它梳理了各国法院对本国国际商事仲裁中取证协助问题上的立场,得出大多国家为国际商事仲裁取证提供协助的基本事实,并对各国相关制度的基本内容与特点进行了总结和分析;其三,它梳理了一些国家的法院对外国仲裁取证是否提供协助的立场,事实上只有少数国家明确支持,也有一些国家的立场模糊不清或摇摆不定,大多数国家对此仍持观望态度。近几年有些国家开始改变立场,呈现出了一种国际趋势,即国内法院越来越多地为外国仲裁提供取证协助。最后,本章又进一步对国际上各国国内法院在协助外国仲裁取证的总体现状进行了理论分析,并提出展望和设想。第六章,“国际商事仲裁中证据的审查认定”。证据的审查与认定是作出公正裁决的关键环节,在仲裁与诉讼中都是如此。但国际商事仲裁与诉讼在证据审查认定的立法与实践存在比较大的差别。其一,本章论述了在国际商事仲裁中,仲裁庭对证据的相关性、可采性以及重要性上享有广泛的自由裁量,不需要严格适用各国尤其是普通法国家繁杂的可采性规则,并针对国际商事仲裁中一些具体的证据可采性问题结合国际实践进行了探讨。其二,论述了作为国际商事仲裁实践中的难题的特免权问题。各国普遍承认对特免权的保护,但特免权的种类与范围各有差异甚至同一法系内部也各不相同。另外,对于国际商事仲裁中特免权的性质识别,理论上存在着各种观点。本章认为应当认定特免权具有双重属性。另外基于国际商事仲裁中的法律适用因联结点众多,涉及多个国家的法律,它提出各种法律选择方法,比如复合保护标准;“最惠国原则”,合同约定方法,统一标准方法等等。另外,鉴于证据或信息是否受特免权保护需要先对其内容进行审查认定,而如何进行审查也是仲裁实践中面临的一个问题,处理不当会导致正当程序的违反。它介绍了重要的一种认定方法,即通过委托中立的第三人进行审查并由后者向仲裁庭提供报告。其三,它探讨了在国际商事仲裁中证据的证明力问题,它应当交由仲裁庭自由裁量,而不是事先确定,这与一些大陆法国家采取的“法定证据制度”不同。而关于证据采信标准,即证明标准,论述了对于国际商事仲裁而言,“盖然性权衡”或“优势证据”相比而言是适合的证明标准,除非在特殊案中,比如欺诈、贿赂等情形,可以要求更高的盖然性。其四,在国际商事仲裁中,进行不利推定是仲裁庭认定案件事实的程序“工具”。本章对国际商事仲裁中的不利推定涉及的以下问题进行了详细论述:仲裁庭进行不利推定的权力依据是什么?进行不利推定须要具备什么条件?是否以及什么情况下可以针对第三人的不配合行为进行不利推定?仲裁庭的自由裁量权的界限在哪里?第七章,“我国国际商事仲裁中的证据问题”,审视了我国国际商事仲裁中的证据规则的确定与适用,从整体特征到具体问题,通过与国际化实践进行比较,发现不足,并提出建议。其一,本章从证据规则和仲裁实践两个层面整体审视我国国际商事仲裁中证据事项处理的现状与问题。在阐释我国国际商事仲裁证据规则的确定与适用中存在的严重的“诉讼化”与“本地化”倾向的基础上,分析了其中主要的原因,并针对这些原因提出对策与建议。其二,它阐述了在我国国际商事仲裁实践中,证据的收集与提供方面存在的诸多不足。其三,它介绍了我国立法在法院协助国际商事仲裁取证方面存在的重大缺失,并提出在借鉴各国立法经验的基础上,构建我国的仲裁取证的法院协助制度。其四,它针对在证据的审查认定方面我国国际商事仲裁实践与理论中的问题,提出我国仲裁界人士应该明智地摆脱不合适宜的法律文化的桎梏,在证据的审查认定方面借鉴国际化实践,尤其应当认可国际商事仲裁中的特免权。国际商事仲裁中的证据是近几年国际仲裁界研究的热点问题,而我国学者相关的论述还不够充分。本文以国际商事仲裁的效率与公平、法律文化以及规则的灵活性与可预见性的冲突与平衡为视角,通过理论分析与实证分析相结合、比较分析等方法对国际商事仲裁中的证据问题进行研究,并试图为我国国际商事仲裁中的证据规则的确定与适用提供理论指导,以实现我国仲裁的国际化,进一步提升我国作为国际商事仲裁中心的地位。

【Abstract】 International commercial arbitration now becomes an important, even the most preferred method of dispute resolution. Since evidentiary issues relate to the result of the award directly, they are important to any mechanism of dispute settlement including international commercial arbitration. The legislation on arbitration in almost every country provides just a few provisions on evidence, and such is the case with great majority of the institutional rules. Thus the tribunals play an important role in determining the evidentiary rules in international arbitral practice.To determine the rules of evidence in international commercial arbitration properly, several relationships should be handled and balanced very well. First, the participants in international commercial arbitration come from different countries with different legal cultures. One of the key issues to be resovled in determining evidentiary rules properly is how to balance the different legal cultures. Secondly, as to the relationships between efficiency and fairness of international commercial arbitration, there exist conflicting viewpoints. It is necessary to balance their relationship in practice. Otherwise, the parties to international transactions will lose the confidence for international commercial arbitration, because efficiency and fairness of international commercial arbitration are both important factors considered when they choose arbitration other litigation. Thirdly, flexibility is the spirit of international commercial arbitration. However, the lack of fundamental predictability and un-availablity of protection for reasonable expectation will disappoint the parties to arbitration. Thus, many specific arbitral rules of evidence have been compiled, and they play a more and more important role in international arbital practice. Balancing the relationship between flexibility and predictability, different legal cultures, and efficiency and fairness properly are the preconditions to wide acceptance of the arbitral rules of evidence.So, the thesis makes a research on evidence in international commercial arbitration from the perspective of balancing the relationships mentioned above. The thesis sets out in seven parts, besides the introduction and conclusions, with more than 200 thousands of Chinese characters.Chapter I, the Compilation and Its Tendency of Evidentiary Rules in International Commercial Arbitration. First, it discusses the sources and characters of evidentiary rules in international commercial arbitration, and then it illustrates that more and more attention was paid on the compilation of specific evidentiary rules in international commercial arbitration, among which IBA Rules is one of such successful examples. In fact, these rules take the form of soft law. Following that, due to the hot debate on the necessity of evidentiary rules in international arbitration, it explores the reasons for compilation of those rules. In the end, it makes a further study on the tendency of development of these evidentiary rules of international arbitration, namely they become harmonized to a very large extent.Chapter II, the Determination and Application of Evidentiary Rules in International Commercial Arbitration. First, it introduces the role that the parties and the tribunal play in determining the evidentiary rules in international commercial arbitration. Secondly, it discusses the limit of the freedom enjoyed by the parties and the tribunal in determining the evidentiary rules in international commercial arbitration. One of them is mandatory rules of the law governing the arbitral procedure, and the other is the rules on whether the court provides assistance in taking evidence for international commercial arbitration. Thirdly, it discusses why evidence law should not be applied strictly in international commercial arbitration, but illustrates that the legal cultures of the participants have a really great impact on the determination of evidentiary rules in international commercial arbitration. Finally, it illustrates that international soft law of evidence in the example of IBA Rules plays an important role in the practice of international commercial arbitration, even if the parties don’t agree to the applicability of IBA Rules explicitely.Chapter III, Document Production in International Commercial Arbitration. It first introduces the general issues on documents production, and then emphasizes that the US-syle discovery should be not apppicable to international commercial arbitration for the reason of efficiency, and finally discusses the tribunal’s power of ordering the parties to produce unfavorable documents and the scope and requirements of document production. Moreover, it introduces the remedies a party to arbitration may obtain in case of the parties and the third parties’refusal to produce the required documents. Following that, it covers the issue of disclosure of e-documents. It make and description of attributes of e-document and the potential problems and chanlenges they bring about to international commercial arbitration, and further explores such issues as the scope of e-document production, the form of e-document production, and the burden of costs. In light of the unmature practice of e-doucment production, it is submitted that the rules of e-document production should be determined by the parties’agreement, or by the tribunal consulting with the parties as soon as the arbitral procedure begins.Chapter IV, Presentation of Oral Evidence in International Commercial Arbitration. First, it illustrates the cultural harmonization in the aspects of presentation of witness, written statement, and witness’s attending evidentiary hearings in international arbitral procedures. Secondly, it discusses the issues such as qualification of expert, the discretion of the tribunal to designate experts, the due process relating to expert’s discretion, expert report and expert witness’s examination. Thirdly, it analyzes the reasons why party-designated expert and tribunal-designated expert co-exist, their advantages and disadvantages, the way to choose the mode and overcome their disadvantages in context of international commercial arbitration.Chapter V, National Court’s Assistance in Taking Evidence for International Commercial Arbitration. Because the arbitral tribunals have no coercive power, and in case of non-cooperation of the parties or the third parties to produce the required evidence, whether or not the national court’s assistance could be sought is very important for the reason that the material evidence un-available affects the accuracy of awards, even the country’s reputation as seat of arbitration. First, it discusses the fundamental theories on national court’s assistance in taking evidence for international commercial arbitration, such as the nature of international commercial arbitration, the shortages of arbitral tribunal’s power, the general tendency of pro-arbitration policy implemented world-widely. Secondly, it introduces the positions of different countries on national court’s assistance in taking evidence for international commercial arbitration conducted domestically, and reaches a conclusion that most countries admit such judicial assistance, and analyzes the characters of the rules of those countries on court’s assistance. Thirdly, it makes a further study on the positions of different countries on national court’s assistance in taking evidence for foreign arbitration, reaches a conclusion that just a few countries hold a clear position to support foreign arbitration in the aspect of taking evidence, further analyzes the reasons and puts forward to some proposals.Chapter VI, Admissibility and Assessment of Evidence in International commercial arbitration. First, it discusses the tribunal’s discretion in determining the relevance and admissibility of evidence, and why there is no necessity of considering the complex rules on Evidence of admissibility in common countries. Secondly, it covers the issue of privilege, which is recognized world-widely. it discusses the categories and nature of privilege, explores the approach to determine the applicable law to privilege, such as the closest connection principle, contract approach, uniform approach, the most favorable nation approach, and introduces a method to identify whether the information is protected by privilege, i.e., appointing a neutral expert, whose mission is to provide expert report to the parties and the tribunal, to check the information. Thirdly, it discusses the tribunal’s discretion in determining the materiality and weight of evidence, and the standard of proof in international commercial arbitration. Fourthly, since drawing adverse inference is a procedural tool to make clear the disputed fact, it discusses the following questions: what is the source of the tribunal’s power of drawing adverse inference? What requirements should be met in drawing adverse inference? Whether and in what circumstances adverse inference could be drawn against the third party? Where is the limit of the tribunal’s discretion in drawing adverse inference?Chapter VII, the Evidentiary Issues in Chinese International Arbitration. It first introduces the status and the problems on the rule-making and related practice on evidence in Chinese international arbitration, then illustrates that the the phenomenon of judicialisation and localization exiting in determining and applying evidentiary rules in Chinese international arbitration, analyzes the main reasons, and puts forward to the countermeasures and proposals.It then illustrates the problems existing in the aspects of gathering and presenting evidence, after that, it introduces the defect existing in Chinese legislation on the court’s assistance in taking evidence for international commercial arbitration, and puts forward to some proposals on establishment of rules on court’s assistance in taking evidence for international commercial arbitration. Finally, as to the admissibility and assessment of evidence, it suggests that the arbitral practice should not be influenced too much by Chinese litigation. Moreover, as to the standard of proof, preponderance of evidence should be applied, and proof in a convincing manner is not applicable in Chinese international arbitration, like that in civil litigation.While the evidence in international commercial arbitration is a hot-debated issue in the field of international commercial arbitration in recent years, it is still not paid enough attention in China. The present thesis makes a comparative study on the issue of evidence in international commercial arbitration, in both theoretical and empirical approach, and in the perspective of balancing the relationship between efficiency and fairness, between the different legal cultures, and between flexibility and predictability, and aims to provide guidance for the practice of evidentiary matters in Chinese international arbitration, and to promote the status of China as center of international arbitration with good reputation.

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