The Plurality And Synergies Of Legal Traditions In International Arbitration

The cultural diversity characterizing international arbitration today is as much a source of enrichment as it is sometimes a source of practical difficulties affecting both the arbitration procedure and the application of substantive law. Consequently, it is becoming clearer that the critical project for international arbitration in the immediate future will be how to best answer the fundamental question of cultural pluralism. This book presents an informative and well-argued discussion on many aspects of international arbitration, clarifying the main procedural and substantive similarities and differences between different legal systems around the world, focusing not only on common and civil law traditions but also the role played by regional legal traditions including Islamic law and African perspectives. With contributions from fifty arbitrators, counsel, and academics representing every region of the world where international arbitration has secured a foothold, the volume consolidates and synthesizes a series of discussions sponsored by the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators that took place in Dubai, Johannesburg, and Paris in 2017. The essays identify and address the cultural distinctions that affect the key ever-present factors which have forged the character of modern international arbitration, such as the following: the seat of the arbitration and the legal regime to which the arbitration is attached; due process, which has different and specific meanings in different national legal systems; international standards such as international public policy, illegality, arbitrability, and sanctions; the immunity of international arbitrators; form of presentation of evidence, production of documents, oral and written submissions, and expert evidence; the specific context of international investment arbitration; disputes in specific industries or legal areas (telecommunications, construction, mining, intellectual property); the role of national judges and the legal traditions they embrace throughout and after arbitration proceedings; how to incorporate more conciliatory cultural traditions, which are notably shared in many African and Asian countries; and training and opportunities for the next generation in international arbitration. The book is replete with tools and recommendations to ensure synergy and harmony between the different legal traditions that coexist in today’s arbitral proceedings. All users of arbitration, whether the arbitrators themselves, lawyers involved as counsel for parties, or judges applying arbitration law, will greatly appreciate this matchless elucidation of the different systems and alternative ways of presenting the divergent procedures and ways of conducting international arbitrations. The book’s immeasurable value to arbitration academics goes without saying.

This book is about the peaceful resolution (PR) of territorial and maritime disputes and states' strategic behavior vis-à-vis methods of peaceful resolution: bilateral negotiations, good offices, inquiry, conciliation, mediation, arbitration, and adjudication. The authors argue that the high stakes associated with settlement of territorial and maritime disputes, the diversity of PR methods employed, and unpredictability of outcomes push states to strategize. Strategic considerations undergird states' choice of the particular PR methods, and states' behavior during the resolution once a particular method such as adjudication or negotiations, has been initiated. Uncertainty about the outcome drives states to pursue "strategic selection." The process of strategic selection occurs at two interrelated stages: the initial pursuit of a particular method and venue--choice-of-venue strategic selection, and decision-making once a PR method/venue has been identified--within-venue strategic selection. The driving force behind strategizing in these two settlement stages is the hope of reducing uncertainty and of increasing the chances of winning. Importantly, as the disputants progress through the settlement process, states reconsider and refine these strategies. For each stage of strategic selection, Powell and Wiegand identify several mechanisms that influence states' strategies, including past experiences with PR methods (winning/losing), the relationship between domestic law and international law, framing legal claims, and shaping the resolution procedures. This book embraces a multi-method approach and combines statistical analyses and in-depth qualitative interviews with states' legal counsel, judges, arbitrators, government officials, and other experts from multiple countries. The book also highlights numerous real-world instances of territorial and maritime disputes including the Philippines v. China arbitration case in the South China dispute.

It often seems today that no dispute is barred from resolution by arbitration. Even the fundamental question of whether a dispute falls under the exclusive jurisdiction of a judicial body may itself be arbitrable. Arbitrability is thus an elusive concept; yet a systematic study of it, as this book shows, yields innumerable guidelines and insights that are of substantial value to arbitral practice. Although the book takes the form of a collection of essays, it is designed as a comprehensive commentary on practical issues that emerge from the idea of arbitrability. Fifteen leading academics and practitioners from Europe and the United States each explore different facets of arbitrability always with a perspective open to international developments and comparative evaluation of standards. The presentation falls into two parts: in the first the focus is on the general features of arbitrability, its rationale and the laws applicable to it. In the second, arbitrability is specifically examined in the context of administrative, criminal, corporate, IP, financial, commercial, and criminal law This book has its origins in an International Conference on Arbitrability held at Athens in September 2005. Seven papers presented there are here reviewed and updated, and nine others are added. The subject of the book and– arbitrability and– is one that is much talked about, but seldom if ever given the in-depth treatment presented here. Arbitrators and other practitioners in the field will welcome the way the analysis moves logically from theory to practice regarding every issue, and academics will recognize a definitive treatment of arbitrability as understood and applied in the settlement of disputes today.

This major extension of existing scholarship on the fragmentation of international law utilises the concept of 'regimes' from international law and international relations literature to define functional areas such as human rights or trade law. Responding to existing approaches, which focus on the resolution of conflicting norms between regimes, it contains a variety of critical, sociological and doctrinal perspectives on regime interaction. Leading international law scholars and practitioners reflect on how, in situations of diversity and concurrent activity, such interaction shapes and controls knowledge and norms in often hegemonic ways. The contributors draw on topical examples of interacting regimes, including climate, trade and investment regimes, to argue for new methods of regime interaction. Together, the essays combine approaches from international, transnational and comparative constitutional law to provide important insights into an issue that continues to challenge international legal theory and practice.

"Abstract Global legal pluralism has become one of the leading analytical frameworks for understanding and conceptualizing law in the twenty-first century"--

Contracts are relevant, frequently central, for a significant number of investment disputes. Yet, the way tribunals ascertain their content remains largely underexplored. How do tribunals interpret contracts in investment treaty arbitration? How should they interpret contracts? Does national law have any role to play? Contract Interpretation in Investment Treaty Arbitration: A Theory of the Incidental Issue addresses these questions. The monograph offers a valuable insight into the practice and theory of contract interpretation in investment treaty arbitration. By proposing a theoretical frame for seamless integration of contract interpretation into the overall structure of decision-making, the book contributes to predictability, coherence, sufficiency and correctness of the tribunals’ interpretative practices in investment treaty arbitration.

The second edition of this leading reference work provides a comprehensive discussion of the dynamic and important field of international law concerned with environmental protection. It is edited by globally-recognised international environmental law scholars, Professor Lavanya Rajamani and Professor Jacqueline Peel, and features 67 chapters authored by 76 renowned experts in their fields. The Handbook discusses the key principles underpinning international environmental law, its relevant actors and tools, and rules applying in its substantive sub-fields such as climate law, oceans law, wildlife and biodiversity law, and hazardous substances regulation. It also explores the intersection of international environmental law with other areas of international law, such as those concerned with trade, investment, disaster, migration, armed conflict, intellectual property, energy, and human rights. The Handbook sets its discussion of international environmental law in the broader interdisciplinary context of developments in science, ethics, politics and economics, which inform the way in which environmental rules are made, implemented, and enforced. It provides an introduction to the foundations of international environmental law while also engaging with questions at the frontiers of research, teaching, and practice in the field, including the role of Global South perspectives, the contribution made by Earth jurisprudence, and the growing role of a diverse range of actors from indigenous peoples to business and industry. Like the first edition, this second edition of the Handbook is an essential reference text for all engaged with environmental issues at the international level and the applicable governance and regulatory structures.

This collection of self-reflective essays explores the relations between international legal professions and their respective understandings of international law.