The Culture Of International Arbitration And The Evolution Of Contract Law

Examining a developing culture of international commercial arbitration and the implications for the evolution of contract law, this book includes case studies and analysis from interviews with international arbitrators and national court judges, and identifies trends to explain and predict arbitration decisions on issues of substantive law.

Preface --Opening Speech at the SIA30 Anniversary Conference --Introduction: The Evolution and Future of International Arbitration --Paradigmatic Changes - Uniformity, Diversity, Due Process and Good Administration of Justice: The Next Thirty Years --Document Production, Witness Statements, and Cross-Examination: The Enduring Tensions in International Arbitration --Evolution of Case Law in International Arbitration --A Weather Map for International Arbitration: Mainly Sunny, Some Cloud, Possible Thunderstorms --The Concept of Seat in the New York Convention and the Autonomy of Arbitral Award --The Use of Investor-State Arbitration as a De Facto Enforcement Mechanism for Arbitral Awards --Parties in International Arbitration: Consent v. Commercial Reality --The Swiss Perspective on Parties in Arbitration: "Traditional Approach With a Twist regarding Abuse of Rights" or "Consent Theory Plus"--Third Party Non-Signatories in English Arbitration Law --Comments on Parties in International Arbitration: Consent v. Commercial Reality by Professor Stavros Brekoulakis --A French View On The Application of The Arbitration Agreement to Non-Signatories --Parallel Proceedings Involving Objections to Arbitral Jurisdictions: A Closer Look at the Presumed Intention of the Parties --Preclusion and the New York Convention: Article V(1)(e) and Converse-Article V(1)(e) --Anti-Suit Injunctions and Other Means of Indirect Enforcement of an Arbitration Agreement --National Court Review of Arbitration Awards: Where Do We Go From Here? --Geography of International Arbitration - Where Does the Power Lie? --Expansion of Arbitral Subject Matter: New Topics and New Areas of Law --Emergence of New Arbitral Centres in Asia and Africa: Competition, Cooperation and Contribution to the Rule of Law --The Geography of International Arbitration - Places of Arbitration: the Old Ones and the New Ones --Soft Law and Power --A New Approach to Regulating Counsel Conduct in International Arbitration --Conflicts Disclosures: The IBA Guidelines and Beyond --The Future of Science and Technology In International Arbitration: The Next Thirty Years --The Uncertain Future of the Interactive Arbitrator: Proposals, Good Intentions and the Effect of Conflicting Views on the Role of the Arbitrator --Report: Teaching in International Arbitration --Critically Thinking: International Arbitration in Context --Constructing a "Suite" of International Arbitration Courses: Sample LL. M Course Descriptions and Some Factors to Consider --Most Effective Teaching Methodologies for International Arbitration: Traditional Teaching v. Experiential Teaching --The Proliferation of Specialist LLM Programs - The Challenges They Present, The Development of Programs, Including Specialized Courses --International Arbitration Scholarship: Forms, Determinants, Evolution --The State of Empirical Research on International Commercial Arbitration: 10 Years Later --Empirical Research on International Arbitrators: Benefits and Challenges --Interpreting and Understanding Arbitral Awards for Purposes of Scholarly Research --The Interplay between Empirical Studies and Commercial Arbitration Practice --'Literature Review? What Literature Review?!' - the Influence of Legal Culture on Scholarship in International Arbitration --Appendix: School of International Arbitration 30th Anniversary Gala Dinner Speeches.

Economic Analysis of the Arbitrator’s Function Bruno Guandalini Arbitration has become an important market, where arbitrators are rational economic agents maximizing their utility. Although this is self-evident, it is rarely discussed. This penetrating book is the first to comprehensively analyze the market for arbitrators and arbitrators’ economic role within it. In great depth, the author tackles such salient issues as the following: effect of perceived inefficiencies and high costs on arbitration legitimacy; alleged commercialization of the arbitrator’s function; possible ethical problem raised by financial remuneration for rendering justice; what motivates a person to arbitrate; market for arbitrators’ functioning and failures, providing a better understanding of how actors could behave in such a specific market; structural and artificial entry barriers; effect of an arbitrator’s strategic behavior on the arbitrator’s function; limitations on an arbitrator’s rationality; and preventing and correcting these limitations. Numerous references to customs and procedures in major arbitral jurisdictions and to international laws and conventions affecting the efficiency of the arbitrator’s function are included. Pursuing a non-prescriptive analysis, the author draws on the discipline of law and economics, rational choice theory, behavioral economics, and psychological work on bounded rationality. Understanding the arbitrator’s function as a legal institution that is influenced by the market, this pioneer in developing and systematizing the study of the market for arbitrators and how it works will prove of inestimable value to all stakeholders in the arbitration market. Arbitrators, policymakers, regulators, and academics will be enabled to open the way to a more efficient market for arbitrators and betterment in arbitration worldwide.

Although international arbitration has emerged as a credible means of resolution of transnational disputes involving parties from diverse cultures, the effects of culture on the accuracy, efficiency, fairness, and legitimacy of international arbitration is a surprisingly neglected topic within the existing literature. The Culture of International Arbitration fills that gap by providing an in-depth study of the role of culture in modern day arbitral proceedings. It contains a detailed analysis of how cultural miscommunication affects the accuracy, efficiency, fairness, and legitimacy in both commercial and investment arbitration when the arbitrators and the parties, their counsel and witnesses come from diverse legal traditions and cultures. The book provides a comprehensive definition of culture, and methodically documents and examines the epistemology of determining facts in various legal traditions and how the mixing of traditions influences the outcome. By so doing, the book demonstrates the acute need for increasing cultural diversity among arbitrators and counsel while securing appropriate levels of cultural competence. To provide an accurate picture, Kidane conducted interviews with leading international jurists from diverse legal traditions with first-hand experience of the complicating effects of culture in legal proceedings. Given the insights and information on the rules and expectations of the various legal traditions and their convergence in modern day international arbitration practice, this book challenges assumptions and can offer a unique and useful perspective to all practitioners, academics, policy makers, students of international arbitration.

This book charts and assesses the extent to which the major arbitration houses, including the International Chamber of Commerce and the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes, are evolving governance functions that would normally be associated with state courts.

This book deals with the contractual platform for arbitration and the application of contractual norms to the parties' dispute. Arbitration and agreement are inter-linked in three respects: (i) the agreement to arbitrate is itself a contract; (ii) there is scope (subject to clear consensual exclusion) in England for monitoring the arbitral tribunal's fidelity and accuracy in applying substantive English contract law; (iii) the subject-matter of the arbitration is nearly always a ‘contractual’ matter. These three elements underlie this work. They appear as Part I (arbitration is founded on agreement), Part II (monitoring accuracy), Part III (synopsis of the English contractual rules frequently encountered within arbitration). The book will be a useful resource to foreign lawyers or English non-lawyers, English lawyers seeking a succinct discussion, and to arbitral tribunals.​

This book contributes to the empirical understanding of how arbitrators make their decisions on the substance of commercial disputes arising from international construction projects. It is based on in-depth interviews with 28 international construction arbitrators and on the analysis of dozens of international construction arbitration awards. The combined experience of those who participated in the author’s research amounted to hundreds of international construction arbitrations (~ 300 cases) in addition to several hundred international commercial arbitrations. It presents the results of the first and largest research to be undertaken in this area, and it will be useful to arbitration practitioners and scholars and to the wider audience of dispute resolution students, practitioners, and theorists. In turn, the book examines to what extent international arbitrators apply the law as the substantive norm, providing an explanation for that, and then offers insights into whether arbitrators, in fact, lean towards commercial and transnational norms to construe the parties’ contract before discussing to what extent international arbitrators take into account fairness considerations to reach their decisions on the merits of the parties’ claims. The book also examines to what extent international arbitrators apply mandatory rules of foreign law. Lastly, it provides insight into the effect of arbitrators’ background characteristics on their decisions. Written for arbitration practitioners (arbitrators and legal counsel) and scholars, the book will be useful for both experienced arbitrators and those starting their arbitration career or studying for their arbitration qualification. It will also be useful for project professionals involved in contract management and dispute resolution.

The School of International Arbitration of the Centre for Commercial Law Studies at Queen Mary University of London celebrated its 30th anniversary in April 2015 with a major conference featuring presentations by 35 international arbitration practitioners and scholars from many countries representing a variety of legal systems. This volume has emerged from that conference. What is striking is not only the range and diversity of the topics examined but also the emergence of new subjects for examination, demonstrating that arbitration law and practice do not stand still but are constantly evolving. The issues and topics covered include the following: - Evolution of case law and practice in international arbitration; - The concept and autonomy of arbitral award; - Parties in international arbitration; - Parallel proceedings in international arbitration; - Court review of arbitration awards; - Geographic expansion of international arbitration; - Counsel regulation and conflicts disclosures; - The use of technology in international arbitration; - Teaching and research in international arbitration. This superbly organised and edited volume, like earlier conference volumes from the School of International Arbitration, is sure to be welcomed and acclaimed, and like them will prove of lasting value.