ICCA's Congress Series No. 12, reflecting the contributions of numerous renown arbitration experts to the 2004 ICCA Beijing Conference, commences with an overview of the current international arbitration regime in China and Hong Kong, noting both the progress that has been achieved and the work that remains to be done there. The remainder of the volume comprises two sets of papers on contemporary substantive and procedural issues in international commercial arbitration.

The first set contains in-depth reports on the topical subjects of arbitration of foreign investment disputes, the granting of provisional or interim measures with respect to arbitration and the enforceability of awards, supplemented by commentary from the point of view of various specializations and regions.

The second, also using the format of reports and commentary, addresses modalities of conciliation and settlement in relation to arbitration, including various non-binding (ADR) processes, issues (drafting step clauses and confidentiality) in integrated dispute resolution systems, which may combine conciliation and arbitration, and the role of arbitrators as settlement facilitators.