The temptation of Occam’s Razor: jurisdiction, admissibility and party autonomy

Since the implementation of the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration in 1985, its jurisprudence has been developed in a broad array of aspects amongst which is the distinction between jurisdiction and admissibility. It has been said that the distinction is a useful tool in adjudicating the issue of whether an arbitral award should be set aside by a domestic court—but is it necessarily so? In C v D (2023) 26 HKCFAR 216, the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal had the opportunity to revisit the usefulness of the distinction. Given that the Court was divided on the issue, C v D not only provides two lines of thought for the international arbitration community to reflect on the distinction between jurisdiction and admissibility but also provides a reference for Model Law jurisdictions in deciding future cases.