Arbitration Interactive: A Case Study for Students and Practitioners by Klaus Peter Berger

Abstract

Arbitration Interactive: A Case Study for Students and Practitioners by Klaus Peter Berger. Schriftenreihe der August Maria Berges Striftung fur Arbitrales Recht Band 12. Published by Peter Lang (2002, xxxiv + 276 pp. + DVD). ISBN 3-631-39293-1. Academics and practitioners involved in the teaching or training of international commercial arbitration regularly encounter questions from students and trainees concerning the availability of apprenticeships and other opportunities to gain experience of the way arbitration proceedings are conducted. Arbitration is generally a confidential and invariably private dispute resolution process. ‘Third’ parties are not allowed in rooms where hearings are held; hearings are normally held in camera . Arbitration has developed as a system with few absolutes. No two arbitrations are the same. There are no fixed normative rules or procedures. Any factual variation results in a significant change in the context and structure of the arbitration. Indeed, the matrix which affects every arbitration is different and unique depending upon the arbitration agreement, the procedure agreed by the parties, the nationality of the parties, the composition of the tribunal, the applicable arbitration rules, the substantive applicable law or rules, the subject matter of the dispute, the mandatory law of the place of arbitration and the permissive law where everything else is silent. However, the desire to know how arbitration is conducted is a legitimate one and there are few available ways of getting there. In any event one should have a good legal background, common sense and comparative law sensibility as well as fluency in more than one language to be able to survive in the international arbitration arena. But what is available in terms of simulations or training tools in arbitration? One could list, inter alia , the following important …