Convergence of Cultures in Transnational Arbitration - Chapter 24 - Revolution in the International Rule of Law: Essays in Honor of Don Wallace, Jr.

Author(s):

Ewell E. “Pat” Murphy Jr.

Media Description:

1 PDF Download

Published:

October, 2014

PDF660.11 KB

$40.00

Description:

Preview Page

I. The Cultural Contrasts

In our globalizing world, people and businesses and legal systems

keep bumping up against each other. Mountains and oceans and national

borders no longer keep them apart. Most large business transactions and

business disputes have some relation to more than one country.

That is certainly true of transnational arbitration, which typically

involves the contrasting laws of two different countries and the

contrasting cultures that produced those laws. And, because a typical

case also involves counsel and arbitrators from different countries, a

practitioner must deal with their contrasting cultures, too. As a famous

arbitrator wrote, "skilled advocates need to be attuned to the culture of

the arbitrators they face …."1 Because of the cultural contrasts that

transnational arbitration presents, in the practice of transnational

arbitration the skill that counsel and arbitrators need most today is the

skill of cross-cultural competence.

II. Common Law vs. Civil Law

In U.S. practice, the cross-cultural competence transnational

arbitration most frequently requires is skill in dealing with the difference

between the legal system of the common law and that of the civil law.

We see that difference vividly in litigation and it spills over into

arbitration.