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

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In a tribute to another great professor, Prosper Weil once described “the honour of jurists” as their capacity to detach themselves from a narrow understanding of the law and embrace broader normative debates about the legitimacy of legal action. The call for a broad understanding of the law is particularly relevant in the field of international arbitration, which, over the past few decades, has grown to become the preferred method for settling important business disputes. In this context, Professor George Bermann’s defence of an analysis that accounts for a wider range of values than those informing the field is not only welcome, but also highly relevant. Professor Bermann raises the question of what it means to be “pro-arbitration”. His argument resonates in the context of the widespread belief in “arbitration circles” that international arbitration is under attack and that a “pro-arbitration” stance is warranted to address these attacks; he makes a plea for a balanced approach that considers wider societal values “in ways that surpass—and properly outweigh—international arbitration’s interests narrowly conceived.”