Contract and Jurisdiction

Abstract

A comment on six recent decisions of the Court interpreting the Federal Arbitration Act of 1925. Also included is a brief analysis of the Court's treatment of forum selection clauses. The argument is advanced that the Court has overindulged the impulse to favor international trade and the ADR movement, and has transmogrified the national law governing arbitration. Special criticism is directed at the failure of the Court to acknowledge the sometimes lawless and sometimes costly character of arbitration, or its potential abuse in contracts of adhesion, and at the Court's unwarranted pre-emption of state law, and undermining of the finality of arbitral awards. The authors contend that the court's work is especially regrettable because Congress had it about right; the only practicable solution to a deplorable situation is for Congress to reform the 1925 Act to protect employees, consumers, patients, franchisees, and the power of states to employ private means to enforce state law.