The Adjudication Business

58 Pages Posted: 12 Mar 2019 Last revised: 15 Sep 2020

Date Written: February 19, 2019

Abstract

The recent proliferation of international commercial courts around the world is changing the global business of adjudication. The rise of these courts also challenges the traditional accounts of the competitive relationship between and among courts and arbitral tribunals for this business. London and New York have long been considered the forum of choice in international commercial contracts—whether parties opt for litigation or arbitration. More recently, however, English-language-friendly international commercial courts have been established in China (2018), Singapore (2015), Qatar (2009), Dubai (2004), the Netherlands (2019), Germany (2018), France (2010), and beyond.

The emerging scholarship addressing these new courts tends to view them as engaged in a global competition with each other and with arbitration to create the most efficient dispute resolution mechanism. That account oversimplifies. The creation of each of these courts is driven by multiple, different factors on the ground.

This Article makes four contributions. First, it offers a categorization of international commercial courts based on the forces apparently driving their creation. Second, it critiques the “race to the top” narrative both within the law-and-economics framework and outside it, drawing attention to the range of domestic and international forces driving the courts’ rise. The courts’ success therefore will not necessarily be based on the excellence of adjudication they provide, but rather on other metrics, like the number of cases or amount of investment they attract, that reflect what drove states to create the international commercial court in the first place. Third, these courts counter a traditional U.S. narrative that arbitration and litigation are opposites. International commercial courts borrow many features from arbitration, like expert adjudicators, confidentiality, and customizable procedures. These courts thus raise questions about what characteristics of arbitration and litigation are fundamental and what parties prefer. Fourth, the Article celebrates procedural innovation but warns international commercial courts against becoming beholden to either sovereign or private interests. 

The Chinese version of this paper can be found at http://ssrn.com/abstract=4768064.

Note: This is a draft. Comments are welcome.

Keywords: Courts, Specialty Courts, International Commercial Courts, Litigation, Arbitration, International Commercial Arbitration, Contracts, Civil Procedure, the Market for Contracts, Law Markets, ADR

JEL Classification: K00, K10, K12, K33, K41

Suggested Citation

Bookman, Pamela, The Adjudication Business (February 19, 2019). 45 Yale Journal of International Law 227 (2020), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3338152 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3338152

Pamela Bookman (Contact Author)

Fordham University School of Law ( email )

150 West 62nd Street
New York, NY 10023
United States

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