Approaching the Global Arbitration Table: Comparing the Advantages of Arbitration as Seen by Practitioners in East Asia and the West

Abstract

How diverse cultures approach conflict in the context of the integration of global markets is a new arena for research and practice. To date, most research on international arbitration has focused exclusively on Western models of arbitration as practiced in Europe and North America. While such studies accurately reflected the geographic foci of international arbitration practice in the mid-twentieth century, the number of international arbitrations conducted in East Asia has recently been growing steadily and on par with growth in Western regions. This Article presents a cross-cultural examination of how international arbitrators in East Asian and Western countries view the relative advantages of international arbitration. The results of a 115 person survey and 64 follow up interviews shed light on the underlying cultural attitudes and approaches to international arbitration as practiced in diverse regions. The findings indicate that arbitration practitioners’ perceptions of the benefits of treaty-based features of international arbitration - such as enforceability, neutrality, limited discovery, and predictability - demonstrate a high degree of convergence across regions. At the same time, cultural and socioeconomic distinctions are reflected in varying arbitrator perceptions regarding the importance of amicability, confidentiality, voluntary compliance, and efficiency of international arbitration proceedings. In particular, amicability and confidentiality are regarded as having greater importance among East Asian arbitrators, while the limited scope of discovery is regarded with greater importance in the West.

Keywords: International Arbitration, East Asia, Law and Globalization, Dispute Resolution, Empirical Legal Studies