Dispute Resolution and Arbitration Commons^™

Arbitrating In The Ether Of Intent, Jarrod Wong

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

The U.S. Supreme Court's jurisprudence interpreting the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) is incoherent in a respect that is fundamental yet not quite captured in existing legal literature. Specifically, in determining the core question of whether any particular dispute should be resolved by arbitration under the FAA, the Court has stubbornly relied on the concept of the parties' “intent” on the matter. “Intent,” however, is at once elusive and polymorphic. It is elusive because the parties will often not have considered whether the particular issue is arbitrable, much less who—court or arbitrator—should decide that preliminary question. It is polymorphic as rendered …

Public Input For City Budgeting Using E-Input, Face-To-Face Discussions, And Random Sample Surveys: The Willingness Of An American Community To Increase Taxes, Alan Tomkins, Rick D. Hoppe, Mitch Herian, Lisa M. Pytlikzillig, Tarik Abdel-Monem, Nancy Shank

Lisa PytlikZillig Publications

Regular public input into a city's budget is frequently associated with municipal budgeting in Brazilian cities, successes in public engagement that have been emulated around the world. American communities are adopting the practice to varying degrees. This paper will report on a five-year old public input program that is taking place in Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital city of a politically conservative state in the U.S. We discuss the processes we use to engage the public about the City's budget. The process includes regular online input as well as face-to-face, deliberative discussions. On occasions, random sample surveys also have been used. …

The Moral Dimension Of Employment Dispute Resolution, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Articles

Dispute resolution may be viewed from the perspective of economics or negotiation or contract law or game theory or even military strategy. In this Article, I should like to consider employment dispute resolution in particular from the perspective of morality. I do not necessarily mean "morality" in any religious sense. By "morality" here I mean a concern about the inherent dignity and worth of every human being and the way each one should be treated by society. Some persons who best exemplify that attitude would style themselves secular humanists. Nonetheless, over the centuries religions across the globe have played a …

Using Principles And Policies Of Maritime Arbitration To Guide Responsible Parties In Oil Spill Claims Resolution, Lucy Martucci

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

This Note will: 1) provide an introduction to maritime arbitration, 2) discuss an example of a challenged arbitration award in the maritime context, 3) provide a background on OPA 90 and the National Pollution Funds Center ("NPFC"), 4) discuss the claims procedure under OPA 90, 5) discuss an example of a challenged NPFC decision, 6) discuss the problems with the GCCF, and 7) propose amendments to OPA 90. This Note will argue that in order to avoid the complex litigation that ultimately dissolved the GCCF, with the goals of cost efficiency, speed and fairness in mind, amendments to OPA 90 …

It's In The Game: Redefining The Transformative Use Test For The Video Game Arena, Joseph Gutmann

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

New York Convention And The American Federal System, The Symposium, Christopher R. Drahozal

Journal of Dispute Resolution

Whether state law can play a broader role in international arbitration matters in the United States depends on the extent to which the New York Convention and Chapter Two of the FAA (which implements the Convention) preempt state arbitration law. This article undertakes a preliminary analysis of that broad topic by examining several legal questions central to determining the preemptive effect of the New York Convention: (1) What effect, if any, does the federal-state clause (Article XI) have on U.S. obligations under the Convention? (2) To what extent does Chapter Two of the FAA apply in state court? and (3) …

If We Could, Then So Can You: The Seventh Circuit Resurrects Its Judge Versus Arbitrator Analogy To Reinstate A Repeat Arbitrator Note, Collin Koenig

Journal of Dispute Resolution

Arbitration clauses provide a method for companies to settle business disputes without expending the amount of time and resources required in judicial proceedings. When an arbitration clause is invoked, a neutral third party takes on the role of adjudicator, and the parties defer to the unbiased decision of that neutral. Sometimes what is "unbiased" becomes more uncertain when parties contract for the right to appoint their own arbitrators. Trustmark Ins. Co. v. John Hancock Life Ins. Co. stands for the principle that the Seventh Circuit will relax the impartiality standard to which they hold party-appointed arbitrators, especially compared to the …

To Kill A Mockingbird Mediator?: Assessing The Need For Third-Party Neutrals In Federal Bankruptcy Courts' Home Foreclosure Avoidance Programs, Lancelot L. Esteibar

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

This Note proceeds in four parts. First, Part I provides background information on the mortgage crisis, the loss mitigation processes, and current federal, state, and bankruptcy court programs aimed towards preventing foreclosure. Second, Part II describes the role of a mediator and the process of mediation. Third, Part III examines barriers to effective negotiation and why mediators can assist in overcoming those obstacles in the bankruptcy courts' loss mitigation programs. Finally, Part IV offers an alternative to the direct negotiation model prescribed by the S.D.N.Y., E.D.N.Y., and D.R.I. loss mitigation programs.

The Use Of Mediation As A Complement To The Integrated Domestic Violence Courts Of New York, Lauren K. Williams

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

In 2001, New York created the Integrated Domestic Violence Courts in order to more efficiently and more comprehensively address domestic violence cases. Domestic violence cases that were formerly spread out between two or three different courts can now be resolved in front of one judge. While this new court does minimize the hassle for the parties involved in the dispute and does eliminate inconsistent rulings by different judges in different courts, this new court structure does not address some problems that have existed with courts' approaches to resolving domestic violence. These problems include (1) that abusers can often afford to …

Abuse, Mediation And The Catholic Church: How Enforcing And Improving Existing Statutes Will Help Victims Recover, Jeffrey Pruzan

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

Allegations of sexual abuse at the hands of religious figures is an epidemic that has spread throughout the United States and abroad.' In the United States alone, U.S. bishops have reported receiving allegations of abuse committed by 6,115 Catholic priests, or 5.6 percent of the 109,694 active U.S. priests since 1950. The U.S. bishops also reported receiving allegations from 15,235 victims, or 2.6 victims per priest; however, this figure is universally acknowledged to be low. Some estimates put the number of victims in the United States at over 280,000.

Convergence And Divergence In International Dispute Resolution Symposium, Peter B. Rutledge

Scholarly Works

Drawing on the literature, two strands help to frame this paper. The first concerns why parties choose to arbitrate. The second strand is the literature documenting the efforts within the arbitration industry to encourage the use of arbitraments.

My goal in this paper is to bridge a gap between this second strand and the first, more theoretical strand. What is missing from both strands is a concrete, system-wide understanding about why parties opt for arbitration as opposed to other forms of dispute resolution. In other words, I seek both to give concrete understanding to the theoretical model articulated in the …

Advisory Adjudication, Girardeau A. Spann

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Supreme Court decision in Camreta v. Greene is revealing. The Court first issues an opinion authorizing appeals by prevailing parties in qualified immunity cases, even though doing so entails the issuance of an advisory opinion that is not necessary to resolution of the dispute between the parties. And the Court then declines to reach the merits of the underlying constitutional claim in the case, because doing so would entail the issuance of an advisory opinion that was not necessary to the resolution of the dispute between the parties. The Court's decision, therefore, has the paradoxical effect of both honoring …

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

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Equipoise In Family Law, Deborah Cantrell

Publications

Scholars reviewing family law over the last twenty years have described the field as having undergone a revolution. While true, both scholars and front-line family law advocates have failed to invent a satisfying end to the revolution. This Article takes up that challenge and offers a novel way forward, It identifies two translation challenges that have prevented the revolution from reaching its end. The first challenge is translating reform so that its benefits accrue equally across all kinds of participants--rich and poor, those with lawyers and those without. The second challenge is translating theory into on-the-ground practices useful to family …

Employment Arbitration: Panel Discussion, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Other Publications

The rapid growth of arbitration in nonunion employment settings has provoked endless debate about its advantages and disadvantages for employers, employees, and unions. Often absent from the debate is systematic, reliable information on the extent of employment arbitration and arbitration outcomes. Professor Alexander Colvin of Cornell University has undertaken pioneering work that explores how employment arbitration is working in practice and its impact on the major players. After Professor Colvin presented his latest findings, a panel of leading arbitrators and advocates discussed the implications of his results for the continuing development of employment arbitration.

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 …

Thoughts On Arbitrator Selection: Why My Father Was (Usually) A Good Choice, Robert H. Smit

Faculty Scholarship

Many of the letters, cards and emails of condolence that I received after my father, Professor Hans Smit, passed away last year were from lawyers who had appeared before my father, serving as arbitrator, in international arbitrations. Most said very nice things about my father, some over the top: “worthy of canonization,” “a force of nature,” “Odysseus,” an “icon.” Others were kind but more restrained (coming perhaps from attorneys whose clients fared less well before my father): “creative,” “indomitable,” “fair but scary.” One of my favorites, from a non-native English speaker, was even more neutral, describing my father simply as …

Arbitrability Trouble, George A. Bermann

Faculty Scholarship

The general notion of arbitrability is practically as old as arbitration itself, and yet it remains profoundly misunderstood, at least in U.S. arbitration law. For many – particularly outside the United States – arbitrability has a single and very precise meaning, signifying the legal capacity of a claim or dispute to be the subject of arbitration rather than litigation or, to borrow the language of the UNCITRAL Model Law and the New York Convention, signifying that a claim or dispute is “legally capable of being arbitrated.” By this understanding, a claim or dispute is “non-arbitrable” within a given legal system …

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 …

Mediation And The Neocolonial Legal Order: Access To Justice And Self-Determination In The Philippines, Eduardo R.C. Capulong

Faculty Law Review Articles

In this article, the author examines how the process of U.S.-style alternative dispute resolution is unfolding in the Philippines, a former U.S. colony.

Drawing from representative case studies, Part I highlights emerging practices in the global South counter-hegemonic to the fundamentals of U.S.-style mediation.

Part II describes the Philippine community mediation experience, in particular the ideologies, structures, and practices of indigenous dispute resolution, the neighborhood justice system, and court-annexed mediation.

Part III discusses access to justice and self-determination as they relate specifically to community mediation in a postcolonial context.

Using qualitative research the author conducted in the Philippines in 2010, …