The French Law of Arbitration by Jean Robert and Thomas E. Carbonneau

Abstract

The French Law of Arbitration by Jean Robert and Thomas E. Carbonneau Published by Mathew Bender, New York, 1983 (Nine Chapters plus Preface, Table of Contents, Appendices, Selected Bibliography and Index). Price $75 US. A Swiss-American Perspective of a Franco-American Treatise Gallic arbitration law holds a special fascination for the student of international commercial dispute resolution, whether scholar or practitioner, connoisseur or novice. France's popularity as an arbitration situs may explain some of this interest.1 However, the deeper intellectual significance of the subject probably lies in the historical richness of the French judicial and legislative elaboration of a special status for international commercial arbitration. The development of French arbitration law represents a paradigm of the modern trend toward ‘delocalised’ procedure,2 in which arbitral autonomy is restricted by only a bare minimum of local procedural imperatives. The French Law of Arbitration is a first-rate adaptation of Jean Robert's classic treatise on French arbitration law, first published in 1937, and now in its fifth edition.3 But it is much more. The authors' guide to the interaction of judge and arbitrator in France provides an interpretation of civil law concepts for the common law mind that constitutes valuable scholarship in its own right. The work is an intellectually rewarding, practically useful, and elegantly styled contribution to the growing literature in the field.4 This effort illustrates the potential for fruitful co-operation among comparativists from divergent backgrounds, and should stimulate further inquiry into broader questions relating to the way curial norms of the place of arbitration apply to international arbitral proceedings. The experience, talent and credentials of the authors, as well as the reputation of Columbia's Parker School, under whose auspices the book was published, would lead one to expect a quality book. This expectation is not disappointed. Jean Robert has been a distinguished member of the Paris bar for well over half a century. Thomas Carbonneau is a tenured member of the faculty of Tulane Law School and Assistant Director of the Eason-Weisman Center …