Call For Papers: Special Issue on International Arbitration in the Digital World @AnneWag26082949

 

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law: Call for Papers Special Issue on International Arbitration in the Digital World

Guest Editors: Vijay K. Bhatia, Chinese University of Hong Kong Magdalena Łągiewska, University of Gdańsk, Poland. 

CFP available online at: 

https://resource-cms.springernature.com/springer-cms/rest/v1/content/20136590/data/v1

 

Strong on Arbitration as an Early Common Law Court

S. I. Strong, University of Missouri School of Law, is publishing Past As Prologue: Arbitration as an Early Common Law Court in volume 57 of the Houston Law Review (2020). Here is the abstract.

Two well-known means of resolving legal disputes in the United States – consumer arbitration and employment arbitration – have long been characterized as illegitimate forms of “second class” or “rough” justice. Recent years have seen renewed debate about the nature and quality of arbitral decision-making in light of several U.S. Supreme Court opinions involving arbitration. Proponents of consumer and employment arbitration have defended the device through empirical, doctrinal and policy studies. However, thus far, no one has considered the fundamental fairness of these types of arbitration through a comparative historical analysis dating back to medieval England, when the common law first began. This Article seeks to determine whether and to what extent modern forms of consumer and employment arbitration can be analogized to early common law courts, meaning those that operated between 587 and 1485 C.E. The analysis adopts a methodological technique known as applied legal history as a means of comparing practices and procedures in contemporary arbitration with practices and procedures in early common law courts so as to consider questions of procedural fairness and legitimacy. In so doing, the Article challenges a number of preconceptions about the nature of civil justice and comes to some surprising conclusions about ongoing (mis)perceptions about consumer and employment arbitration.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Lo on the Need for a Clearer Set of Arbitration Rules on the Issues of Translation and Language Interpretation

Chang-fa Lo, National Taiwan University, has published Beyond Semantics and Semiotics ─ Arguing for a Clearer Set of Arbitration Rules on the Issues of Translation and Language Interpreting at 9 Contemporary Asia Arbitration Journal 197 (2016). Here is the abstract.

Although the linguistic issues concerning the appropriate and accurate translation of documents and concerning language interpreting of statements in an arbitration proceeding are important, it is of even higher systemic importance that legal issues relating to translation and language interpreting are properly identified and addressed in arbitration rules. The paper argues that translation and language interpreting between different languages in arbitration and other legal proceedings involves certain important legal issues. Since translation and language interpreting involves legal issues, the paper argues that it is legally and practically desirable to include certain provisions in arbitration rules to address such legal issues so as to avoid translation and interpreting being made and conducted in a manipulated or distorted manner. The paper proposes some general principles to be included in the arbitration rules, such as the requirement of good faith in translation; the requirement that all translation and interpreting are subject to the other party’s challenge, among others. The paper also proposes some specific principles to be included in arbitration rules, such as the submitting party to be responsible for the result of its translation; an interpreter to be prohibited to actually help correct, modify or distort the statement of the party, and the translator or language interpreter to be prohibited to actually “interpret” or “distort” the law or contract provision or the evidence.

Tribunals and Translation

Alessandra Asteriti, University of Glasgow School of Law, has published 'Three Grades of Evil': Nabokov, Wittgenstein and the Perils of Treaty Interpretation as European Society of International Law, 10th Anniversary Conference, Vienna, 4-6 September 2014, Conference Paper no. 1/2014. Here is the abstract.

The article investigates the interpretative practice of investment tribunals in the light of Wittgenstein's theory on rule following and usage, to advance the hypothesis that arbitral tribunals run the risk to interpret the language of the treaties so as to effect a deracination of their terms. In order to do so, the article employs Vladimir Nabokov's reflections on the perils of translation, contextually arguing that the incorporation in investment treaties of language developed in specific domestic frameworks (i.e. United States' constitutional jurisprudence) is an example of semantic hegemony accompanied by hermeneutic conformity on the part of tribunals.

Download the paper from SSRN at the link. 

New Addition to the Star Trek Literature

Antonin I. Pribetic, Osgoode Hall Law School, has published "'To Boldly Go Where No One Has (Arbitrated) Before': The Star Trek Mythos as an Heuristic Paradigm for Jurisdictional and Arbitration Issues", a short paper on the ST:TNG episode "The Ensigns of Command" and the arbitration issues it raises. Here is the abstract.

While the topic of international arbitration has failed to capture the interest of Hollywood producers or television audiences, the science fiction genre yields a serendipitous result. Using an excerpt from a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, this brief comment analyzes the impact of law and popular culture on the issues of the rule of law, jurisdiction and international (more accurately, "intergalactic") comity within the context of bilateral and multilateral treaty obligations.

Download the entire paper here.

The piece adds to the developing Star Trek bibliography that includes pieces by Jeffrey Nesteruk, Franklin and Marshall College, "A New Narrative for Corporate Law," available from SSRN and the anthology Star Trek: Visions of Law and Justice (2005), which brings together several of the more famous essays, including Paul Joseph and Sharon Carton's "The Law of the Federation."