Michael Mustill: a reminiscence

Abstract

The arbitration world lost a giant when Michael Mustill departed in April of this year, just a few days short of his 84th birthday. A man of enormous intellect and wit, with a fine capacity for sincere friendship, this generous Yorkshireman enriched us through contributions as counsel, judge, scholar, and mentor. Lord Mustill sat as judge successively in the High Court of London, the English Court of Appeal and the UK House of Lords, the last of which morphed into the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. After retirement from the bench, his service as arbitrator touched a wide spectrum of disputes, implicating expertise in both private and public law. His treatise on commercial arbitration shines for a robust analysis of arbitration law,1 as does the innovative and seriously brilliant exploration of what the ‘new lex mercatoria’ might (or might not) comprise.2 He served his alma mater, Cambridge, as Arthur Goodhart Professor, Fellow of St. John’s College, and Honorary President of the Cambridge University Law Society. Among his judicial pronouncements in the field of international arbitration, several will be ‘worth a detour’ as the Michelin Guide says of an exceptionally good gourmet restaurant. In this connection, we might stop to consider the House of Lords decision in the Channel Tunnel case,3 for which Lord Mustill delivered a majority speech addressing the vexing question of when and how courts in one country should play a part …