An arbitration award (or arbitral award) is a final determination on the jurisdiction, merits, costs or other aspect of a dispute by an arbitration tribunal in an arbitration, and is analogous to a judgment in a court of law. It is referred to as an 'award' even where all of the claimant's claims fail (and thus no money needs to be paid by either party), or the award is of a non-monetary nature.

Although a successful party in arbitration will typically be awarded compensation or damages, tribunals usually have a range of remedies that can form a part of the award.

Arbitration is particularly popular as a means of dispute resolution in the commercial sphere (for a summary of the various arenas in which arbitration is usually chosen, see the specific article on "arbitration"). One of the reasons for doing so is that, in international trade, it is often easier to enforce an arbitration award in a foreign country than it is to enforce a judgment of the court.

Under the New York Convention 1958, an award issued in a contracting state can generally be freely enforced in any other contracting state, only subject to certain, limited defences. Those defences are:

Virtually every significant commercial country in the world is a party to the Convention, but relatively few countries have a comprehensive network for cross-border enforcement of judgments of the court. Hence in many countries, particularly in emerging markets, a foreign arbitration award is much easier to enforce than an award of the court. For example, it is very difficult to enforce foreign judgments in the former CIS countries, but it is considerably easier to enforce awards of an arbitration tribunal.

The other characteristic of cross-border enforcement of arbitration awards that makes them appealing to commercial parties is that they are not limited to awards of damages. Whereas in most countries only monetary judgments are enforceable in the cross-border context, no such restrictions are imposed on arbitration awards and so it is theoretically possible (although unusual in practice) to obtain an injunction or an order for specific performance in an arbitration proceeding which could then be enforced in another New York Convention contracting state.

The New York Convention is not actually the only treaty dealing with cross-border enforcement of arbitration awards. The earlier Geneva Convention on the Execution of Foreign Arbitral Awards 1927 [1] remains in force, but the success of the New York Convention means that the Geneva Convention is rarely utilised in practise.

In judicial proceedings in many countries, governments enjoy sovereign immunity from suit. However, governments can submit to arbitration, and certain international conventions exist in relation to the enforcement of awards against nation states.