Originally from Alternatives to the High Cost of Litigation

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It is that time of year. Law schools around the world have finished and are reviewing their courses: how their students and teachers did and what they managed to teach each other.

In what the U.K. government insists is the first post-pandemic academic year, the results may be as mixed as they were while we were all teaching online. For international arbitration teaching, the challenges include a number of hurdles created by the subject itself and some generated by the academic world itself.

Heading up the “inherent problem” list for international arbitration teaching must be the definition of the subject itself. A course titled “international arbitration” cannot sensibly cover only one legal system. There are too many things in an international dispute that “leak” out beyond the seat of arbitration, like court proceedings brought in breach of the arbitration clause, evidence inconveniently located, and the obvious problem of finding ways to enforce the award away from where the award emerged.