Originally from World Arbitration And Mediation Review (WAMR)

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The moment is well known to most international arbitration
practitioners and seldom comes unannounced. It may have been
preceded by a strongly worded letter to the tribunal, a prolonged
silence in the hearing room, or an inordinate amount of calls to
the administrator. Then, departing from what most would
consider the ordinary course of an arbitration, a party files scores
of broad U.S.-style requests for discovery; moves to strike from
the record hundreds of pages worth of evidence on grounds that
apostilles and notarizations are conspicuously missing; or seeks
an order for the local police to apprehend and bring before the
tribunal witnesses who have failed to voluntarily appear for
cross-examination.1
Whether exemplifying “cultural conflicts” (as contemporary
jargon would sometimes have it) or just making it plain that “the
moving party does not know how to behave in an international
case” (as a senior arbitrator put it in a recent private
conversation), these are situations that tribunals, opposing
counsel, and administrators must readily address. This article
maintains that many “cultural conflicts” in international
arbitration are in fact legal questions that must be resolved
through the appropriate applicable provisions. Next, it discusses