PCA Mixed arbitration

 The Permanent Court of Arbitration began its life in 1899, and continued after 1907, as an interstate arbitral institution. The PCA is an intergovernmental organization with over one hundred member states. The PCA was established by the 1899 Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, concluded at The Hague during the first Hague Peace Conference. The 1899 Convention was revised in 1907 at the second Hague Peace Conference.  PCA’s organizational role has been extended to mixed arbitration, that is, to arbitration between States or State entities on the one hand and private parties or corporations on the other. This occurred for the first time in 1935. Since that time about half of all the cases dealt with under the auspices of the PCA have been mixed arbitrations, and the proportion is increasing. Subsequently the Secretary-General became the default mechanism under the UNCITRAL Rules of 1976.

The competence of the PCA in the field of mixed arbitration has been founded on Article 47 of the 1907 Hague Convention, which provides: “The Bureau is authorized to place its offices and staff at the disposal of the Contracting Powers for the use of any special Board of Arbitration. The jurisdiction of the Permanent Court may, within the conditions laid down in the regulations, be extended to disputes between non-Contracting Powers or between Contracting Powers and non-Contracting Powers, if the parties are agreed on recourse to this Tribunal.”

In 1962 the PCA’s Permanent Administrative Council adopted the first set of Rules of arbitration and conciliation for settlement of international disputes between two parties of which only one is a State.The PCA also has distinct sets of Optional Rules for arbitrating disputes involving international organizations and States, and between international organizations and private parties.

Source: Prof. James Crawford, THE PERMANENT COURT OF ARBITRATION AND MIXED ARBITRATION