International Human Rights Law

Chevron and the Rise of Arbitral Power: A Response

[Michael D. Goldhaber serves as Senior International Correspondent and "The Global Lawyer" columnist for The American Lawyer and the ALM media group. His writes widely on human rights and corporate accountability, international arbitration, and global multiforum disputes. His e-book on Chevron will be published next year by Amazon. His first post can be found here.] I'm grateful for the very gracious and insightful comments shared by the eminent arbitrator Christoph Schreuer, the scourge of eminent arbitrators Muthucumaraswamy Sornarjah, and the wunderkind of arbitration scholarship, Anthea Roberts. Having solicited a wide range of commentary on my Article, I now must defend myself from friendly jabs on both flanks. Dr. Schreuer and Professor Roberts both argue thoughtfully that the relationship between tribunals and courts should be understood in a broader context. Along the way, Dr. Schreuer questions my realist view that arbitrators effectively review judges. In the course of a bracing systemic critique, Professor Sornarajah calls my desire for proportionality analysis and a plenary appeal within arbitration naive. I stand by my position that arbitrators are increasingly at odds with judges, and that they functioned like reviewing judges in several of the final awards surveyed (although I perhaps could have been more attentive to terminology). Dr. Schreuer helpfully distinguishes between vacating a decision (in an annulment) and replacing it (in an appeal), and argues that arbitrators do neither. But consider the results. When the treaty tribunal in Saipem v Bangladesh reinstated a contract arbitration award that had been nullified by a national court, it effectively vacated the court decision, and replaced it with a decision confirming the commercial arbitration. In White v. India, the tribunal stripped the national courts of jurisdiction because they were too slow, and effectively stepped in to confirm a commercial arbitration award. In Chevron v. Ecuador I, the tribunal stripped the courts of jurisdiction for being too slow, and expressly decided the court cases de novo under Ecuadorian law. Surely these results were functionally equivalent to appellate review. Likewise, when ATA v. Jordan finally terminated an ongoing court proceeding, it emphatically resolved the case in ATA's favor. I'm not sure how such a remedy should be categorized, but I cannot agree with Dr. Schreuer that it's "much weaker" than appellate review. I readily agree with Schreuer and Roberts on their main point: that judges and arbitrators interact in multifarious ways. My Article's opening passage acknowledged as much, and explained that I would dwell on arbitral review because it is the most neglected facet of their relationship Professor Roberts astutely observes that the relationship between tribunals and courts is triangular -- in the sense that arbitrators tend to review judges from poor nations, but to be reviewed by judges from rich nations. What she leaves unsaid is that judges in rich nations have historically deferred to arbitrators (whether out of ideology, correct interpretation of the law, or sensitivity to cross-border competition among the arbitration elites). I would therefore predict that the U.S. Supreme Court will overturn the D.C. Circuit's encroachment on arbitrators' turf in BG v. Argentina. If not, arbitration will simply flow away from UNCITRAL tribunals sited in the U.S., toward tribunals that are governed by either ICSID or the laws of arbitration-friendly European states. But either way, if they wish to sustain their power, arbitrators should take the hint: At least some courts in rich nations are deferring less because they perceive arbitrators as overweening. A lack of internal review may lead to external review. Although Professor Sornarajah and I share many perceptions -- for instance the need for transparency --, he views me as any self-respecting revolutionary views a reformer. He cannot understand why I would wish to fix an edifice with rotten foundations, rather than to blow it up.