Enforcement of Foreign Award and Public Policy Rules in Pakistan

Abstract

Public policy is a phenomenon that is difficult to be confined within boundaries. It is a variable notion that evolves with the growth and upbringing of society. It is mostly unwritten and un-codified. Therefore, it greatly bears the potential to be used in an unbridled manner by the competent authorities of the states against the enforcement of foreign awards. This feature of public policy emphasizes the need to chalk out those ideologies and canons in a state that give birth to its public policy rules and constitute to be the basis of it. Like every other country, Pakistan also has a public policy which provides grounds to its national courts to nullify those arbitral awards which are inconsistent to it. This article uses doctrinal research and primarily relies on caselaw in its descriptive analysis of the sources that constitute the foundation-stone of Pakistan's public policy and the principles that have evolved upon it.