11 - General Conclusion

Summary

This chapter provides an overview of each of the book’s chapters and summarizes a key objective of the book, which was to identify three broad phases or periods in the modern history of international commercial arbitration: the Age of Aspirations, the Age of Institutionalization, and the Age of Autonomy. It also asks whether we are entering a new age in the modern history of international commercial arbitration – an Age of Disruption, where the tension between the mercatocracy and the State is exacerbated by unfamiliar circumstances that could threaten the integrity of the arbitration system as a whole. These circumstances include such phenomena as the rise of nationalism, the reemergence of protectionism, and broader fears about globalization. It points to what Judge Crawford described as a “risk of erosion in the current political climate,” and asks whether this “erosion” could signal a shift from the Age of Autonomy to the Age of Disruption.