How are international arbitration awards enforced across countries?

The enforceability of international arbitration awards rests largely on a widely adopted treaty commonly known as the New York Convention, formally the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards. Under it, courts in the many signatory countries are generally required to recognize and enforce arbitral awards made in other signatory states, subject only to a limited set of grounds for refusal. In the United States, this treaty is implemented through Chapter 2 of the Federal Arbitration Act. This framework is what allows a party that prevails in an arbitration in one country to enforce that award against assets in another — a level of cross-border enforceability that ordinary court judgments generally do not enjoy, and the principal reason international arbitration is so widely used.