Part III Arbitral Proceedings: Establishing the Facts and Applying the Law, A Counterpoise Between Fairness and Efficiency, 2 The Value of Rules and the Risks of Discretion: Arbitration’s Protean Nature

In most matters it is more important that the applicable rule of law be settled than that it be settled right. Louis Brandeis1 Let us go back three-quarters of a century. In June 1927, the National Geographic Magazine published an article describing law reform under a Manchu emperor who reigned in the early eighteenth century. Emperor Kang-hsi decided that courts should be as bad as possible so his subjects would settle disputes by arbitration. Responding to a petition about judicial corruption, he decreed as follows: Lawsuits would tend to increase to a frightful...