Originally from: Soft Law in International Arbitration

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Introduction
The American Arbitration Association (AAA) and its international
arm, the International Centre for Dispute Resolution® (ICDR) are
committed to the principle that commercial arbitration, and particularly
international commercial arbitration, should provide a simpler, less
expensive and more expeditious form of dispute resolution than resort to
national courts.

While arbitration must be a fair process, care must also be taken to
prevent the importation of procedural measures and devices from
different court systems, which may be considered conducive to fairness
within those systems, but which are not appropriate to the conduct of
arbitrations in an international context and which are inconsistent with an
alternative form of dispute resolution that is simpler, less expensive and
more expeditious. One of the factors contributing to complexity, expense
and delay in recent years has been the migration from court systems into
arbitration of procedural devices that allow one party to a court
proceeding access to information in the possession of the other, without
full consideration of the differences between arbitration and litigation.

The purpose of these guidelines is to make it clear to arbitrators that
they have the authority, the responsibility and, in certain jurisdictions,
the mandatory duty to manage arbitration proceedings so as to achieve
the goal of providing a simpler, less expensive, and more expeditious
process. Unless the parties agree otherwise in writing, these guidelines
will become effective in all international cases administered by the ICDR
commenced after May 31, 2008, and may be adopted at the discretion of
the tribunal in pending cases. They will be reflected in amendments
incorporated into the next revision of the International Arbitration Rules.
They may be adopted in arbitration clauses or by agreement at any time
in any other arbitration administered by the AAA.