Law Commons^™

The Limitations Of Comparative Institutional Analysis, Sadie Blanchard

Journal Articles

Atul Gawande’s Checklist Manifesto became a sensation in 2009 because it promised that a simple technique could powerfully discipline decision-making. Gawande had saved lives using hospital checklists, and he argued that checklists could improve outcomes in other complicated endeavors. Checklists, he explained, “provide a kind of cognitive net. They catch mental flaws.” Neil Komesar’s method of comparative institutional analysis is by necessity messier than the checklist and does not claim to produce faultless policy-making. But Komesar similarly seeks to improve cognitive processing by imposing a disciplining framework on decision-making. Sergio Puig and Gregory Shaffer’s effort to introduce Komesar’s technique to …

The Politics Of International Investment Arbitrators, Catherine A. Rogers

Journal Articles

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 …

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

Journal Articles

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.

Lawyers Without Borders, Catherine A. Rogers

Journal Articles

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 American Influence On International Arbitration, Roger P. Alford

Journal Articles

It is indisputable that the international arbitration world is an identifiable epistemic community that transcends national borders, and whose members are shaped by their own experience. Increasingly, that experience reflects an American influence, be it heritage, training, affiliation, or client base. In these remarks, Professor Alford addresses three issues related to the Americanization of international arbitration. The first is whether international arbitration has, in fact, only recently become Americanized. He posits instead that there is always an ebb and flow to the level of the United States' involvement in international arbitration. During the drafting and signing of the 1958 New …

The Ballad Of Transborder Arbitration, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Journal Articles

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 …

The Exuberant Pathway To Quixiotic Internationalism: Assessing The Folly Of Mitsubishi, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Journal Articles

The writing on international commercial arbitration often is replete with statements affirming the necessity and advocating the progression of the institution. Indeed, the transnational consensus on commercial arbitration is exceptional - a rare example of viable cohesion in the fragmented arena of international affairs. The unifying spirit of the 1958 New York Arbitration Convention, the uniformity of approach among national courts to the implementation of the Convention, and national legislation supportive of the emerging international consensus on arbitration attest to a willingness to eradicate parochial concerns, to respond to felt needs, and to achieve functional international cooperation.

The United States …