Remarks by Eduardo Silva Romero

Abstract

Starting with the state-to-state disputes, my impression is that international commercial arbitration has very little influence on them, if not nil. That is the case for, I believe, two reasons. The first reason is that the arbitrators dealing with state-to-state disputes and state-to-state arbitrations are usually, if not always, public international lawyers, and, further, they are often former judges of the ICJ, with the result that the rules and practices of the ICJ are more present in those arbitrations than those coming from international commercial arbitration. The second reason is that not many, if any, international commercial arbitrators intervene in those disputes. There may, in the end, be some procedural similarities between state-to-state arbitration and international commercial arbitration, due to the fact that both are “arbitration,” but that would be it.