Part I Mapping the Terrain, 1 From an Invisible College to an Ethical No-Man’s Land

This chapter traces the origins of modern international arbitration, from the heyday of Oscar Schacter's ‘Invisible College of International Lawyers’ to its eventual decline to an ethical ‘no-man's land’. The former represents an international community built upon a shared understanding of legal proceedings and ethical conduct — a community that has since been fractured as part of the globalization of the legal profession. It has become increasingly clear to institutions operating within national boundaries that the lawyers operating without clear national boundaries require a restructuring of the old procedures that had emphasized localized practices. The international arbitration we see today is an ethical no-man's land whose political status is uncertain, because it straddles the borders between formally occupied national territories. Yet international arbitration remains a challenging prospect, necessitating reconstitution of the old Invisible College ideals in order to redress the ethical no-man's land.