Transnational Law Commons^™

The Footprint Of The Chinese Petro-Dragon: The Future Of Investment Law In Transboundary Resources, Guillermo Garcia Sanchez

Guillermo J. Garcia Sanchez

Transparency In International Commercial Arbitration, Catherine A. Rogers

Catherine Rogers

Scholars have long been making the case for expanding transparency in the international commercial arbitration system, but recently these proposals have taken on a greater sense of urgency and an apparent willingness to forcibly impose transparency reforms on unwilling parties. These new transparency advocates exhort the general public's stakehold in many issues being arbitrated, which they contend necessitates transparency reforms, including compulsory publication of international commercial arbitration awards. In this symposium essay, I begin by developing a definition of transparency in the adjucatory setting, and conceptually distinguishing from other concepts, like "public access" and "disclosure," which are often improperly treated …

When Bad Guys Are Wearing White Hats, Catherine A. Rogers

Catherine Rogers

Allegations of ethical misconduct by lawyers have all but completely overshadowed the substantive claims in the Chevron case. While both sides have been accused of flagrant wrongdoing, the charges against plaintiffs’ counsel appear to have captured more headlines and garnered more attention. The primary reason why the focus seems lopsided is that plaintiffs’ counsel were presumed to be the ones wearing white hats in this epic drama. This essay postulates that this seeming irony is not simply an example of personal ethical lapse, but in part tied to larger reasons why ethical violations are an occupational hazard for plaintiffs’ counsel …

Regulating International Arbitrators: A Functional Approach To Developing Standards Of Conduct, Catherine A. Rogers

Catherine Rogers

Some scholars have protested that arbitrators are subject to less exacting regulation than barbers and taxidermists. The real problem with international arbitrators, however, is not that they are subject to less regulation, but that no one agrees about how they should be regulated. The primary reason for judicial and scholarly disagreement is that, instead of a coherent theory, analysis of arbitrator conduct erroneously relies on a misleading judicial referent and a methodologic failure to separate conduct standards (meaning those norms or rules that guide arbitrators' professional conduct) from enforcement standards (meaning those narrow grounds under which an arbitral award can …

The Arrival Of The "Have-Nots" In International Arbitration, Catherine A. Rogers

Catherine Rogers

Much has been written about the have-nots in domestic litigation and domestic arbitration, with an apparent assumption that their fate was mainly a domestic affair. In recent years, however, internet commerce has brought consumers to the international market, an increasingly globalized workforce has generated a class of international employees, and the link between international trade and human rights has revealed a host of victims. The arrival of these 'have-nots' in international arbitration means that previously latent questions about international arbitration's integrity as a system and role as a mechanism for transnational regulatory governance have been brought to the fore. Using …

Fit And Function In Legal Ethics: Developing A Code Of Conduct For International Arbitration, Catherine A. Rogers

Catherine Rogers

In this Article, I develop a methodology for prescribing the normative content of a code of ethics for international arbitration, and in a forthcoming companion article, I propose integrated mechanisms for making those norms both binding and enforceable. In making these proposals, I reject the classical conception of legal ethics as a purely deontological product derived from first principles. I argue, instead, that ethics derive from the interrelational functional role of advocates in an adjudicatory system, and that ethical regulation must correlate with the structural operations of the system. The fit between ethics and function, I will demonstrate, not only …

Context And Institutional Structure In Attorney Regulation: Constructing An Enforcement Regime For International Arbitration, Catherine A. Rogers

Catherine Rogers

The question that looms large over the future of international arbitration is: How much should states yield to the international arbitration system? This Article attempts to answer the question as it applies to the specific context of regulating attorney conduct.

Transnational Law-Making: Assessing The Impact Of The Vienna Convention And The Viability Of Arbitral Adjudication, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Thomas Carbonneau

Questions concerning the future orientation of the process are more pressing and demand a definition of the international mission and role of arbitral adjudication. Nations share the perception that national economies are no longer autonomous, that they must function within a larger global framework. The question then becomes not whether a uniform international law of sales is needed, but rather how it is to be achieved. The transnational preeminence that arbitration has gained as a remedial mechanism makes it a likely vehicle for elaborating a common law of international contracts. This article assesses the impact of the Vienna Convention upon …

Tax Liability And Inarbitrability In International Commercial Arbitration, Thomas E. Carbonneau, Andrew W. Sheldrick

Thomas Carbonneau

This essay engages in a narrow but crucial inquiry into the limits the inarbitrability defense may now impose upon the exercise of arbitral jurisdiction. While it is assumed that matters relating directly to status and capacity, testamentary dispositions, and title to immovable property fall outside the jurisdictional reach of international arbitrators, the question becomes whether any national regulatory laws, such as tax laws, benefit from the same status of inviolability.

The Ballad Of Transborder Arbitration, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Thomas Carbonneau

International commercial arbitration (ICA) is many things positive. Because business transactions cannot take place without a functional system of adjudication,ICA has enabled parties to engage in and pursue international commerce. As a result, it has had an enormous impact upon the international practice of law, the structuring of a de facto international legal system, and the development of a substantive world law of commerce. In a word, ICA has been a vital engine in the creation of a transborder rule of law. Furthering this design, the arbitral "method"has even been applied to the unruly political problems that attend international trade …

Rendering Arbitral Awards With Reasons: The Elaboration Of Common Law Of International Transactions, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Thomas Carbonneau

With the growth of international trade, arbitration has emerged as the preferred remedy for resolving private international commercial disputes. In fact, among major Western legal systems such as those of England, the United States and France, statutory and decisional law developments indicate a nearly complete acceptance of international arbitral adjudication. This recognition of arbitral procedure and the enforcement of awards, which are given uniform legal recognition and enforcement by domestic legal systems, either as provisions in international conventions or as principles of national statutory or decisional law. These rules, in effect, represent an international consensus on arbitration and constitute a …

Commercial Peace And Political Competition In The Crosshairs Of International Arbitration, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Thomas Carbonneau

This article examines the mixed effect of arbitration upon the generation of international law norms; in particular, how arbitration can generate private law norms so effectively and yet still face strong resistance in public international law processes and controversies. The work of arbitration for international commercial litigation has been nothing less than spectacular. In both the private international and domestic civil contexts, arbitration has provided viable remedial solutions and functional adjudication when the law was either nonexistent or incapacitated. It has supplied a workable and adaptable trial system, which-on the international side-could also generate substantive legal norms. Arbitration thereby has …

Debating The Proper Role Of National Law Under The New York Convention, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Thomas Carbonneau

One of the many consequences of the progressive development of globalization apparently has been to incite a vigorous debate among leading members of the international arbitral community about the role of national law in implementing the enforcement regime of the New York Arbitration Convention (Convention). The debate was provoked by federal court rulings in two recent cases: Chromalloy Aeroservices v. Arab Republic of Egypt (Chromalloy) and Alghanim & Sons v. Toys"R" Us (Toys "R" Us). Prior to these opinions, there appeared to have been an implicit consensus in the international community regarding the "anational"character of …

Cartesian Logic And Frontier Politics: French And American Concepts Of Arbitrability, Thomas E. Carbonneau, Francois Janson

Thomas Carbonneau

This comparative essay represents an attempt to introduce a measure of counterpoise in a growing and much-heralded development in the world law of arbitration. Recent decisional law in the United States, France, and other countries have challenged the strategic significance of the concept of arbitrability in the legal regulation of arbitration. The essay seeks, first, to clarify the function of arbitrability in the law of arbitration and, second, to argue against its judicial deconstruction in either the international or domestic context. The key objective of the analysis is to demonstrate the vital role of demarcation that arbitrability plays between state …

America And Other National Variations On The Theme Of International Commercial Arbitration, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Thomas Carbonneau

Despite attempts at harmonization through treaty relations and State participation in multilateral organizations, the international arena is a composite of unsettled and unsettling structures. The volatility of global politics and discordant national perceptions of legitimate lawful conduct constitute a precarious, usually unsuitable, basis for an international rule of law. Domestic concepts of legality rarely serve as adequate instruments for molding the character of international relations. The irreducible principle of national sovereignty makes the world community resistant to the adoption of universal juridical standards and consecrates the fragmentation of national self-interest as the ultimate source of legality among nation-states. This article …

Letting The Arbitrator Decide Unconscionability Challenges, 26 Ohio St. J. On Disp. Resol. 1 (2011), Karen H. Cross

Karen Halverson Cross

This article examines how courts are allocating jurisdictional questions relating to unconscionability to the arbitrator, and assesses the approach of U.S. courts to this issue from a historical and comparative perspective. The U.S. allocation rule is evolving toward one of deference to the arbitrator, allowing the arbitrator to make an initial determination of whether there is an enforceable agreement to arbitrate. As a matter of timing, the U.S. approach is becoming more similar to that of France. Such an approach, especially in the commercial sphere, has the potential to be relatively efficient and consistent. But in the context of mandatory …

Arbitration As A Means Of Resolving Sovereign Debt Disputes, 17 Am. Rev. Int'l Arb. 335 (2006), Karen Cross

Karen Halverson Cross

No abstract provided.

Who Decides The Arbitrators' Jurisdiction? Separability And Competence-Competence In Transnational Perspective, John J. Barceló Iii

John J. Barceló III

No abstract provided.

Expanding The Nafta Chapter 19 Dispute Settlement System: A Way To Declaw Trade Remedy Laws In A Free Trade Area Of The Americas?, Stephen J. Powell

Stephen Joseph Powell

Chapter 19 of the NAFTA transfers judicial review of U.S., Canadian, and Mexican government investigations under the controversial anti-dumping and countervailing duty (AD/CVD) laws from national courts to binational panels of private international law experts. The system stands as a unique surrender of judicial sovereignty to an international body, a hybrid of national courts and international dispute settlement with as yet no parallel in the world of international trade or other international law regimes. Binational panel decisions have been controversial because agencies chafe at their intimate examination of agency findings and supporting evidence. Panels also are viewed as substantially more …

On Genealogy Of Proposals To Reform Investor-State Arbitration, Ahmad Ghouri

Ahmad Ali Ghouri

Investor-State arbitration cases involving public interest regulation have been understood as struggles between advocates of the free movement of investment capital, such as multinational corporations, and environmental or human rights interest groups. The critical questions have been framed as follows: should the competing values and interests in public interest regulatory disputes be reconciled through investor-State arbitration? Should arbitrators be permitted to incorporate non-investment international norms into investment law and interpret investment treaties by applying international law generally? Is the development of international law better served by States, as representatives of their peoples, determining the balance of protection and costs by …

Time To Join The “Bit Club”? Promoting And Protecting Brazilian Investments Abroad, Lucas Bento

Lucas Bento

The growing internationalization of Brazilian organizations calls for a greater array of investment protections available to them, particularly as they weave through an increasingly competitive and uncertain global economy. This article argues that the Brazilian government should consider ratifying BITs so as to provide greater protections to its own – domestic – investors.

Reforming Sovereign Lending: Modern Initiatives In Historical Context, W. Mark C. Weidemaier

W. Mark C. Weidemaier