Originally from Pro-Arbitration Revisited: A Tribute to Professor George Bermann from his Students Over the Years

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I met Professor Bermann in the spring of 2003, as I was completing my LL.M. degree at the Columbia University School of Law and enrolled in his course on Transnational Litigation and Arbitration. I then had the unique opportunity of assisting him—together with a team of brilliant colleagues—with the research that led up to the volume Transnational Litigation in a Nutshell, published in 2003 by Thomson West. I did not know then the profound effect that Professor Bermann would have on shaping my views on the theory and practice of the area of law that I was seeking to specialize in: international arbitration.  It was not only the research assignment itself that had this effect.  It was not only the opportunity to work alongside brilliant legal minds from multiple legal backgrounds around the world that challenged and inspired me.  It was, first and foremost, Professor Bermann himself—his liveliness, his spirit, his insatiable curiosity and his passion for asking (difficult) questions—sometimes, questions that called for revisiting issues considered settled by conventional wisdom.

Professor Bermann’s piece “What Does it Mean to Be ‘Pro-Arbitration’?”, published in Arbitration International in 2018, is a perfect illustration of these traits, and the starting point for the thoughts that underpin this modest contribution.

In that article, Professor Bermann posits that any given policy or practice may be pro-arbitration when looked at from one angle, but may go entirely against the goals of international arbitration, thus being deservedly labelled anti-arbitration, when it is considered from a different angle. Perhaps no single issue better illustrates this point than the consideration given to due process allegations in international arbitration.