Blockchain-Enhanced Construction Records: Transforming Evidentiary Standards and Dispute Resolution in International Arbitration

Fragmented construction records prolong disputes and erode evidentiary confidence in international arbitration. This paper interrogates whether permissioned-blockchain ledgers can recalibrate that evidentiary calculus by embedding immutability, cryptographic authentication, and distributed consensus within project documentation. Methodologically, this study employs a doctrinal-comparative approach, examining the UNCITRAL model law, IBA rules on evidence (2020), and the FIDIC conditions of contract (2017), combined with a technical synthesis of permissioned blockchain architectures. The research demonstrates that blockchain-verified records satisfy admissibility, relevance, and weight thresholds while obviating conventional authentication burdens. Real-world pilots illustrate automated notice compliance and payment certification through smart contracts, revealing measurable reductions in cost and delay. A phased implementation framework details protocol selection, hybrid storage architecture, governance safeguards, and change-management strategies that mitigate interoperability, privacy, and stakeholder-alignment challenges. The findings characterize blockchain not as incremental digitization but as a jurisprudential inflection point capable of redistributing evidentiary risk and accelerating finality in construction arbitration. Consequently, industry adoption promises heightened transparency, equitable risk allocation, and globally harmonized dispute-resolution efficiency gains.