From the Alabama Claims to climate change, international arbitration has emerged as the preeminent procedure for determining the entitlements of States (inter-State arbitration), resolving contractual disputes among private businesses or public entities (commercial arbitration), and protecting foreign investors from the arbitrary exercise of governmental authority (investor-State arbitration). In substance, these matters may be determined by public international law, the parties’ choice of domestic contract law, or questions of law and fact from several legal systems, including EU law. Practitioners of inter-State, commercial, and investor-State arbitration therefore must be able to codeswitch between applicable laws and legal traditions when representing businesses or governments. Differences among these forms of arbitration are equally important for scholars and policymakers who study their interaction with economic regulation, the roles of domestic and international courts, or the protection of public interests.

The main forms of international arbitration are introduced in LL4E6 International Dispute Resolution, LL4E7 International Investment Law and Arbitration, and LL4C5 International Commercial Arbitration. Through a programme of wide reading and group discussion, this module connects these specialised forms to develop a generalist perspective on international arbitration as a unified yet diverse field of transnational practice. We will analyse the theoretical, historical, and sociological connections among inter-State, commercial, and investor-State arbitration, as well as their doctrinal interdependence in arbitral practice. Problem questions will call for strategic choices in making or facing claims that might be brought before any of the three forms of international arbitration and the application of legal techniques to resolve possible tensions.