Originally from World Arbitration And Mediation Review (WAMR)

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I. INTRODUCTION
Commentators and practitioners traditionally have argued for curtailing court involvement in international arbitration proceedings to protect the independence and integrity of those proceedings1 and, thus, make arbitration more attractive. Even those measures that are necessary to the arbitral process are oftendescribed in negative terms. This antagonistic characterization of the role of courts is largely unsupported and in need of a makeover.
From a historical perspective, the concept that courts were not intended to play a meaningful role in arbitration is inaccurate. Ancient Roman law, for example, recognized that arbitration agreements and awards had no legal effect on their own without the assistance of courts.4 In addition, the earliest modern efforts at comprehensive arbitration statutes in England – the 1854 Common Law Procedure Act and the 1889 Arbitration Act – provided courts with discretion on whether to stay court actions in breach of arbitration agreements, powers to assist in appointing arbitrators and taking evidence, and judicial review of arbitration awards.5 Similarly, arbitration in the United States has been characterized since its earliest days as necessarily existing “both separate from, and in connection with, court