Law Commons^™

The Blurring Of The Public/Private Distinction Or The Collapse Of A Category? The Story Of Investment Arbitration, Guillermo J. Garcia Sanchez

Guillermo J. Garcia Sanchez

The paper is a response piece to Deborah Hensler and Damira Khatam’s new article, Re-inventing Arbitration: How Expanding the Scope of Arbitration Is Re-Shaping Its Form and Blurring the Line Between Private and Public Adjudication. Their main argument regarding the public-private distinction is that the arbitral procedure has changed as a consequence of the substantive issues resolved in this particular ADR system. According to them the arbitral system, which was originally conceived for commercial purposes, has become another way of litigating public law, but without the accountability mechanisms attached to public courts. In this paper, I agree in large part …

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 …

Lawyers Without Borders, Catherine A. Rogers

Catherine Rogers

Professional regulation of attorneys is still attempting to catch up with the burgeoning international legal profession, which until recently has been wholly unregulated. The primary effort has been through revisions to Model Rule 8.5 to extend the reach of the Rule to international cases and professional activities in foreign countries. Because Rule 8.5 was drafted for domestic multi-jurisdiction practice, however, it is based on assumptions about territoriality and the historical relationship between the jurisdiction of tribunals and the licensing of attorneys that are simply inapposite in international settings. As a result, applying Rule 8.5 to international tribunals and international advocacy …

The Politics Of International Investment Arbitrators, Catherine A. Rogers

Catherine Rogers

Arbitrators are the lightning rod for investment arbitration’s most contentious political debates. Investment arbitration was originally conceived as a means to depoliticize international investment law. The regime was designed to extricate investment disputes from national courts and gunboat diplomacy, entrusting them instead to a neutral law-bound process. According to its critics, however, investment arbitration is neither a neutral, nor a legitimate law-bound process. They lay most of the blame with international arbitrators. Critics contend that, instead of law and appropriate policy considerations, investment arbitrators’ decisions are often the product of extra-legal factors — from their own ideology, to the nature …

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 …

Restating The U.S. Law Of International Commercial Arbitration, Catherine A. Rogers

Catherine Rogers

In December 2007, the American Law Institute ("ALI") approved the development of a new Restatement, Third, of the U.S. Law of International Commercial Arbitration (the "Restatement"). On February 23, 2009, the Restaters and authors of this Essay presented a Preliminary Draft of a chapter of the Restatement (the "Draft") at an invitational meeting in New York. The Draft addresses Recognition and Enforcement of Arbitral Awards. This brief Essay provides some reflections of the Reporters from the process of producing and presenting the Draft. Subsequent Drafts have been produced and approved by the ALI.

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.

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 …

Introduction To Symposium: Achieving Justice In Arbitration, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Thomas Carbonneau

This symposium attests to the depth of scholarship that now surrounds the law of arbitration and to arbitration's widening adjudicatory mission in matters international and domestic. Authored by senior and emerging scholars who share a commitment to professional excellence, the various contributions not only assure continuity in arbitral scholarship, but also underscore the growing sophistication of arbitral practice and illustrate the complexity of the relationship between arbitration and the legal process. This symposium represents an inquiry into the convergence and divergence of legal and arbitral adjudicatory values and what impact these similarities and differences might have upon the functioning and …

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 …

Arbitral Adjudication: A Comparative Assessment Of Its Remedial And Substantive Status In Transnational Commerce, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Thomas Carbonneau

With the growth of international trade, arbitration has emerged as the preferred remedy for disputes in private international commerce. Its adjudicatory features respond well to the sui generis dispute resolution needs of international commercial contracts. Most significantly, an arbitration agreement acts as an elaborate choice-of-forum clause. It allows the parties to satisfy their need for a predictable and effective dispute resolution process by creating a more realistic and workable framework that supersedes the fundamentally parochial alternative proffered by national legal systems. The party autonomy principle that underlies arbitration gives the contracting parties the power to fashion a remedial process tailored …

Laying Down The "Brics": Enhancing The Portability Of Awards In International Commercial Arbitration, Benjamin C. Mccarty

Benjamin C McCarty

The drafters of the 1958 New York Convention intended Article V(2)(b) to be interpreted narrowly, and while most pro-arbitration national courts do maintain narrowly defined areas of public policy that are sufficient for refusal of the recognition and enforcement of a foreign arbitral award, this is not always the case. Developing states and jurisdictions that maintain corrupt or inefficient judicial systems have shown a greater willingness to invoke the public policy exception for a broader, amorphous variety of reasons. This phenomenon has created a sense of unpredictability among international investors, arbitrators, and business executives as to the amount of deference …

Expanded Judicial Review Of Awards After Hall Street And In Comparative Perspective, John J. Barceló Iii

John J. Barceló III

The essay addresses whether party preference for more intrusive court review of the facts and law of an aribitral award will (or should) be respected in national arbitration law. The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Hall Street rules that expanded review clauses are not enforceable under the Federal Arbitration Act. The essay argues, however, that expanded review of an international arbitral award should still be possible in the U.S. if the parties draft the arbitration clause carefully. For that purpose the parties should include an expanded review clause and should place the arbitral seat in a State that allows …

Mediation Representation: Representing Clients Anywhere, Harold Abramson

Harold I. Abramson

No abstract provided.

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.

Prejudgment Interest In International Arbitration, Jeffrey M. Colon, Michael S. Knoll

Jeffrey M. Colon

Tribunals in international arbitration are regularly asked by claimants to award prejudgment interest. Unless foreclosed by an agreement between the parties, there is widespread agreement prejudgment interest should put the claimant in the same position as it would have been had it not been injured by the respondent. However, there is little consensus how to calculate prejudgment interest in order to accomplish that purpose. In this Essay, we describe the proper method of calculating prejudgment interest based on sound financial principles. Using the paradigm that the respondent has forced the claimant to make an involuntary loan to the respondent, we …

Back To The Eternal Debate Of Mfn And Dispute Settlement: A Case Comment On Ics V. Republic Of Argentina, Antoine Martin

Antoine Martin

Most-Favoured Nation (MFN) clauses and their possible extension to dispute settlement mechanisms are at the heart of a significant debate in international investments law. This debate is very lively but it is currently unsettled, as demonstrated by persisting disagreements between opposite Schools of thoughts and multiple inconsistencies in arbitral decisions. MFN clauses were reconsidered recently following a claim brought by ICS Inspection and Control Services Limited against Argentina before the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA). The PCA arbitrators rendered a decision in February 2011 in which jurisdiction was rejected together with the idea that a MFN can be extended to …

International Commercial Arbitrators' Approaches To Contractual Interpretation, Joshua D H Karton

Joshua Karton

This article considers the available international arbitral awards that involve interpretation of a contract. It divides the awards according to the applicable substantive law, and concludes that international commercial arbitrators generally follow the interpretive rules prescribed by the laws of civil law jurisdictions, but sometimes depart from common law interpretive methods. When international arbitrators depart from the applicable law, or when they apply general principles of international law or act as amiables compositeurs, they tend to follow a civil law approach. They see discerning the true (subjective) common intention of the parties as the goal of contractual interpretation, and while …

Conflict Of Interests: Seeking A Way Forward On Publication Of International Arbitral Awards, Joshua D H Karton

Joshua Karton

There now appears to be general agreement that greater publication of awards would benefit the international commercial arbitration system, yet most awards remain unpublished. This article explains the current state of affairs by reference to the conflict between party and systemic interests. Since international arbitration is a private, consent-based system, party interests in keeping awards confidential are likely to trump systemic interests in publishing them—even if those systemic interests align with the long-term interests of commercial parties generally.

The conflict of interests not only explains why confidentiality of international arbitral awards remains the rule, it also points the way to …

Contracting For State Intervention, W. Mark C. Weidemaier

W. Mark C. Weidemaier

Goodbye Boiler-Plate: Practical Advice For Drafters Of Domestic And International Arbitration Agreements, Pamela Fulmer, Noel Rodriguez, M. Anderson Berry

M. Anderson Berry

Parties agree to arbitrate disputes because, among other things, arbitration can be quicker and more flexible than judicial proceedings. This leads to advantages that all parties desire: decreased costs and better predictability of outcome. However, problems arise in domestic and international arbitrations that may defeat these advantages. As this article explains, well thought‐out and effective arbitration provisions can significantly reduce the incidence of these problems. While primarily relying on specific examples from the U.S. domestic sphere, this article also applies to the international sphere unless otherwise indicated.

The core assertion of this article is this: instead of cutting and pasting …