On September 6th, 2018, it was the fourth training day of fourth training session of the China-AALCO Exchange and Research Program on international law. Professor Emilia Onyema of the University of London gave a lecture on the course of "International Commercial Arbitration". Professor Nie Jianqiang from the Institute of International Law of Wuhan University attended the course.

Professor Onyema first defined the form of evidence that was generally accepted in international commercial arbitration. She pointed out that only written evidence could be adopted by the arbitral tribunal and used as the basis for determining the facts of the case. Subsequently, Professor Onyema defined the concept of ‘international commercial activities’, that is, in commercial activities, as long as there exist non-domestic elements, the commercial activity is defined as ‘international commercial activities’. In this regard, Prof. Onyema gave examples for the trainees: two Chinese businessmen traded in China, even if the transaction took place in China and both parties to the transaction were Chinese, but because of the choice of English law, the commercial transaction It is defined as an international business activity.

Next, Professor Onyema taught the participants the principle of the inconvenient court jurisdiction and pointed out that the parties to international commercial activities can freely choose the law applicable to the contract according to their will, and do not necessarily have to have a substantive connection with their commercial activities. In addition, Professor Onyema explained the important role played by the legal concept of "this seat" in arbitration. She emphasized that the law of the seat of "this seat" is the law applicable in arbitration.

In the final part of the course, Professor Onyema divided the participants into four groups to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of ad hoc arbitration and permanent institutional arbitration. The participants expressed their opinions and had a heated discussion on the issue and had a thorough communication and exchange with Professor Onyema on the issues arising from the discussion. Through this course, the participants deepened their understanding of international commercial arbitration and had further understanding of this.