Arbitration Institutes as System Builders

This article explores the role of arbitration institutions in system-building and argues thatarbitration institutions by replicating each other’s rules, facilitating growth of a commonculture of arbitration and strategically cooperating with each other act as important agentsin making arbitration a truly international system. Arbitration institutions impactinternational arbitration in a fundamental way, i.e., despite lacking a formal system ofprecedent, cross-institutional convergence of rules by replication underpinned by a sharedculture of arbitration increases the chances of similar outcomes in procedural disputes withsimilar facts as borrowing of interpretations across institutions become easier. This caneventually lead to the creation of ‘uniform global rules of arbitration practice’ in the future.Though convergence across institutional rules has its merits, it may also undermine thebenefits of diversity. Further research is required to understand the role of arbitrationinstitutions as system-builders and how cross-institutional convergence of rules will impactthe evolution of international arbitration – for example, will adoption of similar arbitrationrules to harness the power of technology, systemically transform the way lawyers arbitratedisputes in the futur