The role of culture in international commercial arbitration
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu25.2024.103Abstract
International commercial arbitration is the primary mean for settling international disputes of a business nature. Because of its very structure, this procedure happens across borders and, needlessly to say, cultures. As a consequence highly technical nature of international commercial arbitration, the debate about “culture” in this field has adopted a fairly narrow approach, and is generally limited to issues relating to clashes of different procedural styles and models (e. g. the discovery of evidence, which is very different in Common Law and Civil Law jurisdictions), studies about the arbitration community itself (a still quite small and tightly-knit group of professionals), or to the arbitration-friendliness of a given country. Yet, the definition of “cultural issues” in international commercial arbitration should be addressed from a much broader perspective. This article intends to fill this gap, by tackling questions related to “law and culture” in arbitration under three possible patterns: issues affecting the arbitrator, issues relating to the applicable law, and issues relevant for the arbitration procedure.
Keywords:
arbitration, alternative dispute resolution, legal cultures, procedural styles, comparative law
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