legal status of lex mercatoria in international trade arbitration

lex mercatoria is a set of customary commercial rules which has been common by merchant among them in order to meet their commercial needs. along with developments in commercial relations and also in dispute settlement mechanisms by arbitrations, the status and nature of these set of rule as autonomous free from domestic and international law has been one of the most important issue of international commercial law. the advantages of using this rules in arbitration and also their concordance with today demands of commercial relation has been the most important reason of invoking lex mercatoria in international arbitration as substantive law governing the dispute. so many judicial decisions issued on the base of lex mercatoria. but at the same time, this question of whether these rules are truly autonomous is under disagreement. so in this study we aim to analyze the debatable nature of lex mercatoria and clarify its legal status in international commercial arbitration.