The Culture of International Arbitration

by Won Kidane

Although international arbitration has emerged as a credible means of resolution of transnational disputes involving parties from diverse cultures, the effects of culture on the accuracy, efficiency, fairness, and legitimacy of international arbitration is a surprisingly neglected topic within the existing literature. The Culture of International Arbitration fills that gap by providing an in-depth study of the role of culture in modern day arbitral proceedings. It contains a detailed analysis of how cultural miscommunication affects the accuracy, efficiency, fairness, and legitimacy in both commercial and investment arbitration when the arbitrators and the parties, their counsel and witnesses come from diverse legal traditions and cultures. The book provides a comprehensive definition of culture, and methodically documents and examines the epistemology of determining facts in various legal traditions and how the mixing of traditions influences the outcome. By so doing, the book
demonstrates the acute need for increasing cultural diversity among arbitrators and counsel while securing appropriate levels of cultural competence. To provide an accurate picture, Kidane conducted interviews with leading international jurists from diverse legal traditions with first-hand experience of the complicating effects of culture in legal proceedings. Given the insights and information on the rules and expectations of the various legal traditions and their convergence in modern day international arbitration practice, this book challenges assumptions and can offer a unique and useful perspective to all practitioners, academics, policy makers, students of international arbitration.

336 pages, Hardcover

Published March 24, 2017

About the author

Won Kidane is an Associate Professor of Law at the Seattle University School of Law. Professor Kidane earned his J.D. from the University of Illinois after obtaining LL.M in International and Comparative Law from the University of Georgia and LL.B from Addis Ababa University School of Law. From 2001 to 2005, Professor Kidane practiced international arbitration in Washington D.C. From 2005 to 2008, Professor Kidane taught at the Penn State Dickenson School of Law. Professor Kidane joined the faculty of the Seattle University School of Law in 2008 and has since been teaching international arbitration and litigation, among other courses. Kidane has published several law review articles and a book entitled: China-Africa Dispute Settlement: The Law, Economics and Culture of Arbitration (2011).