Part II Legal Framework: Courts, Statutes and Treaties, D The Architecture of Arbitration, 3 National Constraints on International Arbitration

Arbitration arises from a contract to entrust the binding resolution of present or potential disputes to a private decision-maker rather than a court. Therefore it may seem puzzling that national procedural law should matter at all to international arbitration. After all, the purpose of an arbitration agreement, by its very nature, is to keep disputes away from judges. Notwithstanding its consensual foundation, however, arbitration often proceeds in the shadow of state power. When one side to a dispute regrets its decision to renounce recourse to courts, the state...