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

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Professor George Bermann encourages us to expand our notion of what is and what is not pro-arbitration, because, as he correctly sets forth, there are many ways to assess the effects of a policy or practice on international arbitration (George A. Bermann, What Does it Mean to be “Pro-Arbitration”? 34 Arb. Int’l 341 (2018)). Moreover, there are certain policies or practices that are pro-arbitration in some respects and anti-arbitration in others (Id.).

One question that tends to be asked in practice is whether a particular jurisdiction is pro-arbitration or anti-arbitration. This question too oversimplifies matters. Some jurisdictions promote themselves as being pro-arbitration. As George Bermann put it “[a]t one time, it may have been sufficient to earn the title of pro-arbitration for a regime simply to avoid hostility to arbitration.” (Id.) Notwithstanding, a jurisdiction’s legal system is composed of many laws, judicial decisions, practices, and policies that, in many ways, may be considered pro-arbitration, but anti-arbitration in others.