The Culture of International Arbitration and the Evolution of Contract Law

by Karton, Joshua D H

• ISBN13: 9780199658008
• ISBN10: 0199658005
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2013-05-05
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This unique study investigates a theory of international arbitration culture alongside the publicly available arbitral awards, in order to make predictions about the contract law principles that international arbitrators are likely to favour. Drawing on interviews with prestigious practitioners in a range of jurisdictions, as well as case studies, conference papers, and unpublished awards, it presents a comparative analysis of arbitral and judicial responses to contractual principles. Part I presents the divergence in outcomes between national court litigation and international arbitration in relation to substantive law determinations, conducting in-depth case studies in two areas: the suspension of performance in response to non-performance, and the admissibility of extrinsic evidence to interpret contracts. Part II accounts for the conclusions of Part I with a comprehensive theory of arbitral decision-making, grounded in evidence gathered first-hand from arbitrators themselves.

Author Biography

Joshua Karton is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Law at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, where he has taught since 2009. A graduate of Yale (BA 2001) and Columbia Law School (JD 2005), he is a member of the New York Bar. He practiced as an associate in the litigation/arbitration group at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP in New York before pursuing his doctoral studies at Cambridge, from which he graduated in 2011 with a PhD in law. This book is based on his PhD thesis, which was supervised by James Crawford and Louise Merrett. Professor Karton was awarded the International & Comparative Law Quarterly Young Scholar Prize for an article based on an earlier version of Chapter Six of this book.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Part 1: Substantive Contract Law in International Commercial Arbitration
1. Legal Rules Pertaining to Substantive Contract Law in International Arbitration
2. Case Study 1: Suspension of Performance
3. Case Study 2: The Use of Extrinisic Evidence to Interpret Contracts
Part 2: International Arbitral Culture and International Arbitral Decision-Making
4. Studying International Arbitral Culture
5. Norms Arising from the Institutional Structure of International Commercial Arbitration
6. Norms Arising from the Values Shared by International Arbitrators
Conclusion
The Evolution of Contract Law