Originally from Pro-Arbitration Revisited: A Tribute to Professor George Bermann from his Students Over the Years

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I. INTRODUCTION

It is not surprising for anyone who has worked closely with Professor Bermann that his piece What Does it Mean to Be “Pro-Arbitration”? includes the statement “international arbitration does not exist in a vacuum” because to work with Professor Bermann is to be introduced to an international arbitration community focused on inclusion, integration, and expansion. It would be easy for Professor Bermann to operate as if international arbitration did exist in an elite academic vacuum, one he has mastered.  In my experience, however, he is just as inquisitive and eager to integrate more legal theories into the realm of international arbitration, but as he is to bring in more legal scholars from around the world.  So, when Professor Bermann writes that being pro-arbitration does not always mean excluding and isolating international arbitrations from national courts and other international legal frameworks, I read that as an obvious extension of what Professor Bermann encourages in his students: to be open-minded, to be curious, and to draw on the world around them.  In this comment, I hope to illustrate the ways in which Professor Bermann is right to assert that international arbitration is strengthened by not operating in a vacuum, both as a community and as a legal framework.