Dispute Resolution and Arbitration Commons^™

Clouded Diamonds: Without Binding Arbitration And More Sophisticated Dispute Resolution Mechanisms, The Kimberley Process Will Ultimately Fail In Ending Conflicts Fueled By Blood Diamonds , Shannon K. Murphy

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

In 2003, under an initiative of the United Nations (U.N.), various nations of the world gave life to the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS)-a method by which consumers of all levels could know the origin of their diamonds-with the Scheme only certifying those harvested from legal, government-run mines. The Scheme's drafters believed that, if given the choice, consumers would choose to buy diamonds mined legally, with profits flowing to legitimate sources of power. However, the KPCS as it stands is voluntary and lacks the teeth needed to deter its violators. The KPCS lacks a binding arbitration agreement and needs a …

Culpa In Contrahendo In European Private International Law: Another Look At Article 12 Of The Rome Ii Regulation, Najib Hage-Chahine

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

Precontractual liability is liability that arises out of a harmful conduct that occurs during the formation period of a contract. Where the harmful conduct occurs during international negotiations, a conflict of laws issue arises. The determination of the applicable law to precontractual liability can be a complex and tedious task, which is why the European Legislature has provided a special conflict-of-law rule in Article 12 of the Rome II Regulation on the applicable law to non-contractual obligations. Through this provision, the European Legislature aims to achieve uniformity between EU Member States, while providing an appropriate conflicts rule. The present essay …

The Role Of Precedent In Defining Res Judicata In Investor–State Arbitration, Pedro J. Martinez-Fraga, Harout Jack Samra

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

As international arbitration, and investment arbitration in particular, becomes more prevalent, the risks of doctrinal fragmentation also increase, in part driven by the disparate treatment of the doctrine of res judicata throughout most jurisdictions, and in the arbitration context. Notwithstanding the general consensus regarding the broad contours of res judicata and its firm position as a principle of international law, there is little agreement regarding how it is to be administered. These developments threaten to undermine the international arbitration system, wresting from it normative legitimacy. The U.S. common law version of res judicata, which is distinct from res judicata as …

Party Autonomy And Access To Justice In The Uncitral Online Dispute Resolution Project, Ronald A. Brand

Loyola University Chicago International Law Review

No abstract provided.

Navigating The Borders Between International Commercial Arbitration And U.S. Federal Courts: A Jurisprudential Gps, S. I. Strong

Faculty Publications

This article provides just that sort of guide, outlining the various ways in which U.S. federal courts can become involved in international commercial arbitration and introducing both basic and advanced concepts in a straightforward, practical manner. However, this article provides more than just an overview. Instead, it discusses relevant issues on a motion-by-motion basis, helping readers find immediate answers to their questions while also getting a picture of the field as a whole. Written especially for busy lawyers, this article gives practitioners, arbitrators and new and infrequent participants in international commercial arbitration a concise but comprehensive understanding of the unique …

Disputing Arbitration Clauses In International Insurance Agreements: Problems With The Self-Execution Framework, Michael J. Ritter

Pace International Law Review Online Companion

This Article argues that the self-execution framework that courts have adopted—and scholars have endorsed—in addressing whether McCarran-Ferguson enables states to reverse preempt the New York Convention is inadequate. First, the Article addresses the interpretive question: what is an “Act of Congress” under McCarran-Ferguson? By examining whether a treaty is self or non-self-executing, courts discard proper methods of statutory interpretation. Second, the Article argues that courts have failed to satisfactorily transpose the self-execution doctrine—which has been relevant only in determining whether a treaty confers a legally enforceable right in the U.S.—into the context of the conflict between McCarran-Ferguson and the New …

Law – Made In Germany: Global Standort Or Global Standard?, James Maxeiner

All Faculty Scholarship

Earlier this year the Federal Ministry of Justice released the second edition of the brochure, Law - Made in Germany. For those readers who do not know the brochure, it is the product of an umbrella group of German professional organizations known as the Bündnis für das deutsche Recht. A purpose of the Bündnis, as stated at its founding in 2008, and of the brochure, is to improve the position of German law in the ― "international competition of legal systems" (internationalen Wettbewerb der Rechtsordnungen). Catalyst for founding of the Bündnis and for publication of Law - Made in Germany …

Document Production In International Arbitration: A Critique From 'Across The Pond', Peter Ashford

Loyola University Chicago International Law Review

No abstract provided.

Juridical Convergence In International Dispute Resolution: Developing A Substantive Principle Of Transparency And Transnational Evidence Gathering, Pedro J. Martinez-Fraga

Loyola University Chicago International Law Review

No abstract provided.

Ethics In International Arbitration: Traps For The Unwary, Margaret L. Moses

Loyola University Chicago International Law Review

No abstract provided.

American Exceptionalism In Consumer Arbitration, Amy J. Schmitz

Loyola University Chicago International Law Review

No abstract provided.

Pre-Tribunal Emergency Relief In International Commercial Arbitration, Erin Collins

Loyola University Chicago International Law Review

No abstract provided.

What Constitutes An "Agreement In Writing" In International Commercial Arbitration? Conflicts Between The New York Convention And The Federal Arbitration Act, S. I. Strong

Faculty Publications

This article investigates whether and to what extent a party must produce an “agreement in writing” when seeking to enforce an international arbitration agreement or award in a U.S. federal court. This issue has recently given rise to both a circuit split and a petition for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court, and involves matters of formal validity as well as federal subject matter jurisdiction. The problem arises out of subtle differences in the way an “agreement in writing” is defined in the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) and the 1958 United Nations Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign …

Arbitrating Trade Disputes (Who's The Boss?), Petros C. Mavroidis

Faculty Scholarship

World Trade Organization (“WTO”) dispute settlement has attracted a lot of interest over the years and there is a plethora of academic papers focusing on various aspects of this system. Paradoxically, there is little known about the identity of the WTO judges: since, at the end of the day, the WTO has evolved into the busiest forum litigating state-to-state disputes. There are many writings regarding the appointment process in other international tribunals. At the risk of doing injustice to many papers on this issue, we should mention the following works: Terris et al. look at various courts and especially those …

Border Skirmishes: The Intersection Between Litigation And International Commercial Arbitration, S. I. Strong

Faculty Publications

This essay considers the tension between the autonomous theory of international commercial arbitration and the more interactive theory advanced by Gary Born during his keynote address at the recent “Border Skirmishes” symposium at the University of Missouri School of Law. In his presentation, Born considered the relationship between litigation and international commercial arbitration and distinguished between permissible “border crossings” and impermissible “border incursions.” This essay considers how these concepts play out both in routine interactions between courts and tribunals and more in difficult scenarios, such as those involving anti-suit injunctions. The discussion also presents statistics concerning the amount of ancillary …

Penalty Clauses And The Cisg, Jack Graves

Scholarly Works

Commercial agreements often provide for “fixed sums” payable upon a specified breach. Such agreements are generally enforced in civil law jurisdictions. In contrast, the common law distinguishes between “liquidated damages” and “penalty” clauses, enforcing the former, while invalidating the latter as a penalty. The UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) does not directly address the payment of “fixed sums” as damages, and the validity of “penalty” clauses has, traditionally, been relegated to otherwise applicable domestic national law under CISG Article 4. This traditional orthodoxy has recently been challenged—suggesting that the fate of a penalty clause …

Border Skirmishes: The Intersection Between Litigation And International Commercial Arbitration, S. I. Strong

Faculty Articles

National courts are becoming increas­ingly involved with international commercial arbitration. Although this observa­tion may be disheartening to those who support the autonomy of the international arbitral regime, the continued interaction between courts and tribunals is less troubling to those who view international commercial arbitration as a "hybrid" method of dispute resolution, with numerous opportunities for permissible "border crossings. "

That is not to say that courts can or should become involved with every as­pect of arbitration. Instead, impermissible "border incursions" diminish the effec­tiveness of international commercial arbitration and could erode public or private support for the international arbitral regime. Therefore, …

Navigating The Borders Between International Commercial Arbitration And U.S. Federal Courts: A Jurisprudential Gps, S. I. Strong

Faculty Articles

Thus, this Article aims to provide newcomers to and infrequent users of international commercial arbitration with a brief introduction to the relationship between international arbitral proceedings and U.S. federal courts. Limitations of space mean that a great deal has necessarily been left out of this discussion. For example, this Article does not describe processes internal to the arbitration, in­stead focusing solely on the interaction between tribunal, parties and court. Fur­thermore, the text often skips over basic propositions of U.S. law that are well­-established in the domestic realm so as to concentrate more heavily on elements that are unique to international …

Microinvestment Disputes, Perry Bechky

Faculty Articles

Salini v. Morocco sparked one of the liveliest controversies in the dynamic field of international investment disputes. Salini held that the word “investment” in the Convention establishing the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), although undefined, has an objective meaning that limits the ability of member states to submit disputes to ICSID arbitration. The Salini debate is central to this field because it shapes the nature, purpose, and volume of ICSID arbitration—and also determines who gets to decide those matters. In particular, Salini’s decision to include “a contribution to development” as an element of its objective definition of …

Unified National Legal Treatment Of International Commercial Arbitration: A Continuing Challenge, Horacio A Grigera Naon

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Overcoming Our Global Disability In The Workforce: Mediating The Dream, Elayne E. Greenberg

Faculty Publications

The unparalleled global support for the 2008 United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities ("CRPD") highlights the global schism between the public extolling of human rights for individuals with disabilities and the private castigating of such individuals in their daily lives and in the workforce. The CRPD explicitly mandates that work is a right accorded to individuals with disabilities, and global employers are now being challenged to implement that right. Yet, in order to ensure meaningful, universal compliance with its directives, the CRPD imposes affirmative duties on Supporting States to develop a customized, workable plan that effectively …

Complex Dispute Resolution: Volume Iii: Introduction And Coda: International Dispute Resolution, Carrie Menkel-Meadow

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Complex Dispute Resolution series collects essays on the development of foundational dispute resolution theory and practice and its application to increasingly more complex settings of conflicts in the world, including multi-party and multi-issue decision making, negotiations in political policy formation and governance, and international conflict resolution. Each volume contains an original introduction by the editor, which explores the key issues in the field. All three volumes feature essays which span an interdisciplinary range of fields, law, political science, game theory, decision science, economics, social and cognitive psychology, sociology and anthropology and consider issues in the uses of informal and …

"There Is A World Elsewhere": Preliminary Studies On Alternatives To Interest-Based Bargaining, F. Peter Phillips

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

We live in an Age of Reason, which our predecessors were pleased to call an Age of Enlightenment. The laws of physics and molecular chemistry, not the appearance of angels to shepherds, define our social expectations. In economics and in politics, we accept the guidance of a collective rationale, an Invisible Hand that, if it doesn't predict, nevertheless records the aggregate of decisions made by millions of social actors, each expressing not the general welfare but their individual self-interest.

Arbitrating Cultural Property Disputes, Elizabeth Varner

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

Years drag by, vicious allegations fly across the world stage, parties die frustrated. While cultural property disputes are frequently arbitrated internationally, arbitration is not often used in domestic cultural property disputes. One of the paradoxes of cultural property disputes is the need to resolve the issue while not harming the parties' reputation or devaluing the cultural property. While scholars have shown much interest in arbitrating cultural property disputes in the United States, maximizing the potential of arbitration in cultural property disputes has largely been ignored.

Rejecting the acceptability of litigating cultural property disputes in the battlefield of the courtroom, this …

Applying Privilege In International Arbitration: The Case For A Uniform Rule, Rachel Reiser

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

This Note will answer that question by exploring the available means of resolving privilege disputes, with special attention to challenges of attorney-client privilege, and analyzing their practicability and value. Part I will discuss the background of privilege in international arbitration by addressing arbitral discretion, choice of procedural and substantive law, and the multitude of issues surrounding the recognition of privilege. Part II will identify the principles of party expectation and equality and discuss their importance in resolving the privilege problem. It will also set out the competing viewpoints on the practicality of a transnational standard. Finally, Part III will investigate …

Sovereignty And The Promotion Of Peace In Non-International Armed Conflict, Anna Spain

Publications

No abstract provided.

Navigating Eu Law And The Law Of International Arbitration, George A. Bermann

Faculty Scholarship

The European Union and international arbitration are two robust legal regimes that have managed to develop largely in accordance with their own respective “first principles,” and they have accordingly thrived. This article initially explains why that has been the case.

But the era of parallelism between the regimes has ended, and rather suddenly. This article identifies the two principal fronts on which tensions between EU law and international arbitration law have emerged. Interestingly, both commercial and investment arbitration are implicated.

A first front entails a conflict between the European Court of Justice's (ECJ's) expansive notions of EU public policy and …

'Domesticating' The New York Convention: The Impact Of The Federal Arbitration Act, George A. Bermann

Faculty Scholarship

Much as one may try to universalize and even ‘de-nationalize’ international commercial arbitration – whether through Conventions, uniform or model laws or soft law – the phenomenon remains profoundly affected by national law and policy. That is indeed very much one of the leitmotifs of this book.

The incongruities – big and small – between domestic and international arbitration regimes typically present themselves on a purely ad hoc basis; that is to say, in specific and often isolated contexts, as when a particular case in a national court produces a result that looks anomalous from the point of view of …

The "Gateway" Problem In International Commercial Arbitration, George A. Bermann

Faculty Scholarship

Participants in international commercial arbitration have long recognized the need to maintain arbitration as an effective and therefore attractive alternative to litigation, while still ensuring that its use is predicated on the consent of the parties and that the resulting awards command respect. A priori, at least, all participants – parties, counsel, arbitrators, arbitral institutions – have an interest in ensuring that arbitration delivers the various advantages associated with it, notably speed, economy, informality, technical expertise, and avoidance of national fora, while producing awards that withstand judicial challenge and otherwise enjoy legitimacy.

National courts play a potentially important policing role …

One (Firm) Is Not Enough: A Legal-Economic Analysis Of Ec-Fasteners, Chad P. Brown, Petros C. Mavroidis

Faculty Scholarship

The WTO’s Appellate Body (AB) dealt with a number of issues for the first time in the Report of EC-Fasteners. Importantly, the AB discussed the consistency of the European Union (EU) regulation with the multilateral rules on the conditions for deviating from the obligation to calculate individual dumping margins. Although China formally won the argument, the AB may have opened the door to treat China as a non-market economy (NME) even beyond 2016 when China’s NME-status was thought to expire under the terms of China’s 2001 WTO Accession Protocol. The AB further dealt with numerous other issues ranging from statistical …