The Culture of International Arbitration

Although international arbitration has emerged as a credible means of resolution of transnational disputes involving parties from diverse cultures, the effects of culture on the accuracy, efficiency, fairness, and legitimacy of international arbitration is a surprisingly neglected topic within the existing literature. The Culture of International Arbitration fills that gap by providing an in-depth study of the role of culture in modern day arbitral proceedings. It contains a detailed analysis of how cultural miscommunication affects the accuracy, efficiency, fairness, and legitimacy in both commercial and investment arbitration when the arbitrators and the parties, their counsel and witnesses come from diverse legal traditions and cultures. The book provides a comprehensive definition of culture, and methodically documents and examines the epistemology of determining facts in various legal traditions and how the mixing of traditions influences the outcome. By so doing, the book demonstrates the acute need for increasing cultural diversity among arbitrators and counsel while securing appropriate levels of cultural competence. To provide an accurate picture, Kidane conducted interviews with leading international jurists from diverse legal traditions with first-hand experience of the complicating effects of culture in legal proceedings. Given the insights and information on the rules and expectations of the various legal traditions and their convergence in modern day international arbitration practice, this book challenges assumptions and can offer a unique and useful perspective to all practitioners, academics, policy makers, students of international arbitration.

Won L. Kidane is a Fulbright Scholar and a tenured Associate Professor of Law at the Seattle University School of Law, where he teaches international arbitration and litigation among other courses. He is the author of China-Africa Dispute Settlement (2011) and co-author of Litigating War: Mass Civil Injury and the Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission (With Sean D. Murphy and Thomas R. Snider, OUP 2014). He has written dozens of articles published in law reviews and leading international law journals including Cornell, University of Pennsylvania, Vanderbilt, Emory, Fordham, and Wisconsin. Before becoming a professor at Seattle University Law School, he practiced as an arbitration attorney at DLA Piper and at Hunton & Williams, LLP in Washington, D.C. He is currently a partner at the Addis Law Group, LLP, a Washington D.C. based boutique international arbitration firm.