This course addresses dispute resolution in international cases from the classical perspective of the private-public divide. The main focus relates to overlapping remedies available under private international and public international law. Nowadays, a multitude of courts and arbitral tribunals at different levels (domestic, international and transnational) is accessible to litigants in cross-border settings.
This text is a study of the public/private law divide in the common law tradition. Its starting point is that substantive duties of legality, fairness and rationality are imposed by the common law on bodies discharging public functions, but not always on bodies discharging 'private' functions.
This Handbook brings together many of the key scholars and leading practitioners in international arbitration, to present and examine cutting-edge knowledge in the field. Innovative in its breadth of coverage, chapter-topics range from the practicalities of how arbitration works, to big picture discussions of the actors involved and the values that underpin it. The book includes critical analysis of some of international arbitrations most controversial aspects, whilst providing a nuanced account overall that allows readers to draw their own informed conclusions. The book is divided into six parts, after an introduction discussing the formation of knowledge in the field. Part I provides an overview of the key legal notions needed to understand how international arbitration technically works, such as the relation between arbitration and law, the power of arbitral tribunals to make decisions, the appointment of arbitrators, and the role of public policy. Part II focuses on key actors in international arbitration, such as arbitrators, parties choosing arbitrators, and civil society. Part III examines the central values at stake in the field, including efficiency, legal certainty, and constitutional ideals. Part IV discusses intellectual paradigms structuring the thinking in and about international arbitration, such as the idea of autonomous transnational legal orders and conflicts of law. Part V presents the empirical evidence we currently have about the operations and effects of both commercial and investment arbitration. Finally, Part VI provides different disciplinary perspectives on international arbitration, including historical, sociological, literary, economic, and psychological accounts.
Contemporary debates about the changing nature of law engage theories of legal pluralism, political economy, social systems, international relations (or regime theory), global constitutionalism, and public international law. Such debates reveal a variety of emerging responses to distributional issues which arise beyond the Western welfare state and new conceptions of private transnational authority. However, private international law tends to stand aloof, claiming process-based neutrality or the apolitical nature of private law technique and refusing to recognize frontiers beyond than those of the nation-state. As a result, the discipline is paradoxically ill-equipped to deal with the most significant cross-border legal difficulties - from immigration to private financial regulation - which might have been expected to fall within its remit. Contributing little to the governance of transnational non-state power, it is largely complicit in its unhampered expansion. This is all the more a paradox given that the new thinking from other fields which seek to fill the void - theories of legal pluralism, peer networks, transnational substantive rules, privatized dispute resolution, and regime collision - have long been part of the daily fare of the conflict of laws. The crucial issue now is whether private international law can, or indeed should, survive as a discipline. This volume lays the foundations for a critical approach to private international law in the global era. While the governance of global issues such as health, climate, and finance clearly implicates the law, and particularly international law, its private law dimension is generally invisible. This book develops the idea that the liberal divide between public and private international law has enabled the unregulated expansion of transnational private power in these various fields. It explores the potential of private international law to reassert a significant governance function in respect of new forms of authority beyond the state. To do so, it must shed a number of assumptions entrenched in the culture of the nation-state, but this will permit the discipline to expand its potential to confront major issues in global governance.
This book examines how the judicialization of politics, and the politicization of courts, affect representative democracy, rule of law, and separation of powers. This volume critically assesses the phenomena of judicialization of politics and politicization of the judiciary. It explores the rising impact of courts on key constitutional principles, such as democracy and separation of powers, which is paralleled by increasing criticism of this influence from both liberal and illiberal perspectives. The book also addresses the challenges to rule of law as a principle, preconditioned on independent and powerful courts, which are triggered by both democratic backsliding and the mushrooming of populist constitutionalism and illiberal constitutional regimes. Presenting a wide range of case studies, the book will be a valuable resource for students and academics in constitutional law and political science seeking to understand the increasingly complex relationships between the judiciary, executive and legislature.
Also available as an e-bookPrivate international law is normally discussed in terms of rules applied in litigation involving parties from more than one State. Those samerules are fundamentally important, however, to those who plan crossborder commercial transactions with a desire to avoid having a disputearise — or at least to place a party in the best position possible if a dispute does arise. This makes rules regarding jurisdiction, applicable law,and the recognition and enforcement of judgments vitally important to contract negotiations. It also makes the consideration of transactionalinterests important when developing new rules of private international law. These lectures examine rules of jurisdiction and rules of recognitionand enforcement of judgments in the United States and the European Union, considering their similarities, their differences, and how they affect the transaction planning process.
This course addresses dispute resolution in international cases from the classical perspective of the private-public divide. The main focus relates to overlapping remedies available under private international and public international law. Nowadays, a multitude of courts and arbitral tribunals at different levels (domestic, international and transnational) is accessible to litigants in cross-border settings. There are three different areas where the private-public divide is applicable. The first pertains to lawsuits in civil courts involving foreign states, state enterprises and international organizations. The second area relates to the delineation between domestic and international remedies. The third area concerns the privatization of dispute settlement, especially in the context of private ordering. This study argues that the private-public divide still exists and cannot be given up. However, one must be aware that private and public international law have complementary functions in order to address adequately the multitude of disputes at both the cross-border and the international level. In this context, this divide can be used as an appropriate tool to explain the complementarity of private and public international law in the multilevel legal structure of a globalized world.
What legal principles apply when courts in different jurisdictions are simultaneously seised with the same dispute ? This question — of international lis pendens — has long been controversial. But it has taken on new and urgent importance in our age. Globalization has driven an unprecedented rise in forum shopping between national courts and a proliferation of new international tribunals. Problems of litispendence have spawned some of the most dramatic litigation of modern times — from anti-suit injunction battles in commercial disputes, to the appeals of prisoners on death row to international human rights tribunals. The way we respond to this challenge has profound theoretical implications for the interaction of legal systems in today’s pluralistic world. In this wide-ranging survey, McLachlan analyses the problems of parallel litigation — in private and public international law and international arbitration. He argues that we need to develop a more sophisticated set of rules of conflict of litigation, guided by a cosmopolitan conception of the rule of law. Quels principes juridiques font foi lorsque des tribunaux de différentes juridictions sont saisis simultanément pour le même litige ? La problématique de la litispendance internationale a longtemps été controversée. Mais, de nos jours, elle devient de plus en plus importante. La mondialisation a entrainé une augmentation sans précédent de surenchères judiciaires entre les tribunaux nationaux, ainsi qu’une prolifération de nouveaux tribunaux internationaux. Les problèmes de litispendance ont engendré quelques uns des litiges les plus dramatiques des temps modernes, allant des batailles d’anti-suit injunction lors de litiges commerciaux aux appels des prisonniers dans le couloir de la mort devant les tribunaux internationaux des droits de l’Homme. La manière dont nous faisons face à ce défi a de grandes implications théoriques pour les interactions des systèmes judiciaires dans notre monde pluraliste. Dans cette étude de grande envergure, McLachlan analyse les problèmes de litiges parallèles au niveau du droit international privé et public, ainsi que l’arbitrage international. Selon lui, nous devons concevoir de nouvelles règles plus sophistiquées concernant les conflits de litiges, tout en respectant une conception cosmopolite de l’Etat de droit.
Contracts are relevant, frequently central, for a significant number of investment disputes. Yet, the way tribunals ascertain their content remains largely underexplored. How do tribunals interpret contracts in investment treaty arbitration? How should they interpret contracts? Does national law have any role to play? Contract Interpretation in Investment Treaty Arbitration: A Theory of the Incidental Issue addresses these questions. The monograph offers a valuable insight into the practice and theory of contract interpretation in investment treaty arbitration. By proposing a theoretical frame for seamless integration of contract interpretation into the overall structure of decision-making, the book contributes to predictability, coherence, sufficiency and correctness of the tribunals’ interpretative practices in investment treaty arbitration.
