It is said that ‘not many fields of law use comparative law as extensively as international arbitration’ (Vadi, 2010). Indeed, comparative approaches to international arbitration law have assumed greater importance in the study of both commercial and investment arbitration. This chapter explores the applications of comparative law methods in the developments of international arbitration law, reviews their key contributions, and suggests potential directions for future study. These methods, whether traditional, historical, linguistic, socio-legal, empirical, or economic have all been employed to varying degrees and varying effects in the study of international arbitration law. Drawing from key publications in the field, this chapter will explore the research focus, themes of enquiry, organisational structures, and analytical techniques of each method in turn as applied to comparative arbitration studies.

This chapter charts what we know about intermediaries across settings and times in history, to provide a comparative perspective on their being within fields of development that broadly relate to interventions of law, regulation, rule of law, justice, and institutions. It focuses on the concept of the intermediary as an analytical means of identifying the social nodes in transnational networks of relative positions and power. It highlights the role that intermediaries play and the challenges they face, at the interfaces of different knowledge and value systems that appear as the development industry intervenes across the globe. It uses an inductive approach, which was key for locating individuals who played an intermediary role in Myanmar’s rule of law assistance field across several institutional positions: local lawyers; local NGOs; locally employed staff of international organisations; government employees; and international consultants. Despite their different roles and assignments, they all had in common having to perform the delicate task of relating larger, globally oriented ideas to the Myanmar locale, in a key middle position between foreign, national and local actors.