Toward a New Federal Law on Arbitration

by Carbonneau, Thomas E.

• ISBN13: 9780199965519
• ISBN10: 019996551X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2014-10-20
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Enacted as a special interest bill in 1925, the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) positioned arbitration well among specialized merchant communities. Its principles relating to the legitimacy of arbitration contracts and the limited judicial supervision of arbitral awards laid the foundation for a more detailed and effective legal regulation of arbitration. Despite the advanced character of its original content, the FAA was never significantly updated by the U.S. Congress, and the standing statutory provisions did not take into account the widening scope of arbitral jurisdiction and its revolutionary impact upon adjudicatory due process. Thus, the task of adjusting the statute to new realities became the responsibility of the U. S. Supreme Court, exercising its duty over a half century and more than fifty cases with the ultimate goal to fulfill the expectations of U.S. citizenship and protect U.S. interests in global commerce.

Toward a New Federal Law on Arbitration endeavors to repair the long-standing problem of updating the official text of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA). In this book, Thomas E. Carbonneau proposes to transform the FAA into a genuine national law of arbitration, based exclusively on the federal rules applicable to arbitration. He argues for necessary change in the federal law of arbitration that will not only benefit commercial interests and the U.S. economy, but also provide protection for smaller individual interests, such as consumers and employees. This book joins the U.S. Supreme Court in proclaiming that judicial litigation is flawed. In the process, this book describes the current federal law on arbitration, provides and explains the provisions of the proposed law, while setting the stage for future adjudicatory practice.

Author Biography

Thomas E. Carbonneau is the Samuel P. Orlando Distinguished Professor of Law at Pennsylvania State University, and Faculty Director of the Institute of Arbitration Law and Practice. He was previously a faculty member at the Tulane University School of Law for more than twenty years, where he held the Moise S. Steeg, Jr. professorship. He has directed summer programs on arbitration at various universities, including McGill University in Quebec, Canada, and Queen Mary College in London. Professor Carbonneau is a scholar of international, comparative, and domestic arbitration. He has written many scholarly articles, and more than fifteen books, including casebooks on international litigation and arbitration. He holds degrees from Bowdoin College, University of Virginia, and Columbia University. He also holds an M.A. from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.