“The Representations of International Arbitration”, New York Law Journal, October 4, 2007.

One’s view of the relationship between international arbitration and national legal systems determines the response to such fundamental questions as the respective role of the arbitral tribunal and the domestic courts (often those of the seat of the arbitration)—for example, in determining the validity of the arbitration agreement, the arbitrators’ power to choose the rules applicable to the merits in the absence of agreement by the parties or the enforcement of an award set aside in the country where it was rendered.

The most significant question in this respect is the source of the arbitrators’ power to adjudicate. Does such power emanate from a single national legal system (frequently that of the seat of the arbitration) or is international arbitration an autonomous process where the arbitrators derive their powers from the sum of all legal systems that recognize, under certain conditions, the legal force of the arbitration agreement and the resulting award?

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