I. INTRODUCTION

To many arbitrators, this debate is sterile in almost every practical sense. To the simple question whether the arbitration tribunal or the parties are the masters now, there can be only one answer. It is the parties’ dispute; and the parties can settle their dispute at any time, in whatever manner and on whatever terms of their own choosing. It is therefore the parties’ arbitration; and subject to reasonable payment for its services, the arbitration tribunal exists subject always to the parties’ collective will; and still more so, an arbitral institution administering the arbitration.1 There is no room for arbitral dictators; no arbitration tribunal functions by divine right; and in any consensual arbitration an arbitrator’s primary qualification derives only from his or her appointment, directly or indirectly, by the disputant parties. Without that, an arbitrator is nothing; and in their creation, arbitrators necessarily acknowledge as their creator the disputant parties. And yet,the perennial nature of the debate suggests that this apparently simple question is much more complicated. How can this be?