The popular image of the American legal system is that it is run amok with litigation-happy disputants. Whether this is true from an empirical perspective is debatable, but in fact American federal law and policy favors arbitration as the country’s preferred means of dispute resolution. This is a longstanding position dating back to the enactment of the 1925 Federal Arbitration Act (FAA). However, the history of this Act and its implementation has been inconsistent. It was forgotten at one point as individual American states enacted statutes to limit the use of mandatory arbitration in consumer contracts. Eventually, the US Supreme Court recognized the FAA as prevailing law and voided state laws limiting the use of arbitration under the federal preemption doctrine.1 In more recent times, the US Supreme Court expanded the scope of private arbitration clauses to include statutory claims, such as in the areas of antitrust, collective bargaining, and civil rights. Even more recently, it has begun to limit the availability of arbitration by placing restrictions on class action arbitration.

Chapter eight discusses developments in the apportionment of jurisdiction between arbitrators and courts concerning the validity of contracts containing arbitration clauses, as well as developments pertaining to the severability doctrine and its connection to the U.S. common law on adjudicating challenges to the arbitral tribunal’s jurisdiction. The issue of orthodox and U.S. common law arbitrability as a gateway issue also is reviewed.

The fifth chapter consists of a discussion of the International Bar Association (“IBA”) Rules on the Taking of Evidence in International Arbitration, with reference to the Rules of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce, the Rules of the International Center for Dispute Resolution, and the Rules of the London Court of International Arbitration. This section culminates with a synthesis of international arbitration rules analyzed through the prism of party-autonomy and some of the more salient features comprising the very fabric of the common law. Chapter five as well explores the “Prague Rules.”

Consists of a historical analysis of international commercial arbitration in the United States. It traces the origins of international commercial arbitration to the arbitration agreements that follow the 1687 enactment of the Statute of Fines and Penalties in England, and also references the Act of 1854 in England that vested courts with the discretion to stay a legal proceeding in deference to arbitration agreements. This chapter also documents early U.S. common law authority that was antagonistic to arbitration generally. This introduction in abbreviated manner reviews landmark Supreme Court decisions that most descriptively represent the development of international arbitration and arbitration generally as standing in pari materia with judicial proceedings.

Chapter six primarily focuses on the development and application of the common law doctrine of Manifest Disregard of the Law, and perhaps on its very disappearance. It undertakes this discussion, however, through paradigms exploring methodologies for possibly avoiding 28 U.S.C. §1782.

The third chapter reviews the development and current status of the doctrine of arbitrator immunity-liability. Comparative models between the U.S. common law and civil law jurisdictions are discussed. The role of the Supreme Court’s post-Civil War Reconstruction Era opinions are re-examined as part of the effort of exploring the doctrine’s development. It is asserted that post-U.S. Civil War Supreme Court jurisdiction profoundly has influenced the U.S. common law on arbitrator immunity.

Chapter seven explores the issue of “perjury in arbitration.” It discusses the issue through the lenses of a comparative approach to “truth-telling” and “oath-taking” in non-U.S. jurisdictions, and judicial proceedings.

The fourth chapter discusses the role of 28 U.S.C. §1782 in international commercial arbitration. Specifically, “the taking” or “gathering of evidence” is compared and contrasted to common law discovery. Emphasis is placed on the construction of a new paradigm asserting that when submitted to reasoned examination, the taking or the gathering of evidence has failed to generate sufficient timely transparency to contribute to creating appropriate settlement conditions. It is suggested that American common law discovery is configured and organized by many of the very fundamental tenets that international commercial arbitration seeks to preserve and to promote; most notably, party-autonomy and transparency. It also is suggested that arbitral procedural law in the context of “evidence gathering” has undergone a revolutionary transformation such that it shall require continental law practitioners to appreciate narrow and limited fundamental principles of U.S. common law discovery. Chapter four also focuses on the role of party-autonomy in the gathering of evidence, as well as the taking of discovery in international commercial arbitration.

The ninth and final chapter analyzes U.S. arbitration doctrinal developments and their dialogue with the New York Convention. Four discrete issues are reviewed: (i) the relationship between non-signatories to arbitration agreements and their obligation to arbitrate, (ii) jurisdiction over an arbitral award debtor as a predicate to enforcement, (iii) the interjection of forum non conveniens in arbitral enforcement proceedings, and (iv) the tensions between rendering states and secondary enforcing states with respect to annulled international arbitration awards.

The second chapter consists of an analysis of shifting paradigms based on critical exploration of the United States Supreme Court’s strictures in Wilko v. Swan, Scherk v. Alberto-Culver, and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. v. Soler Chrysler-Plymouth, Inc. While this particular story has been told and retold, rarely has it been historically contextualized.