Contract Interpretation in Arbitration
Notwithstanding the detailed and rather standardized contract language, comparative law research shows that the same contract language can have different legal effects depending on the governing law. Therefore, standardized terms do not necessarily lead to uniform results if disputes are decided by courts.
Arbitration enjoys a large (though not unlimited) autonomy from national procedural law and is said to be detached from domestic laws even as far as concerns the substance of the dispute. Even accepting that the substantive governing law only plays a marginal role, would this permit contracts to have uniform effects in arbitration? Does arbitration permit avoiding that contracts terms are influenced by the applicable law? And, if so, does arbitration have a uniform legal frame? These are the main questions addressed by the research project Contract Interpretation in Arbitration.
The project is carried out by a multidisciplinary team with lawyers, linguists, and psycholinguists. In 2023, a pilot project was carried out involving 32 renowned arbitrators with a variety of legal backgrounds. The main survey will be carried out in 2025, involving more than 100 experienced international arbitrators from most regions of the world.
The team, led by Giuditta Cordero-Moss (Oslo University), consists of: (i) lawyers from various legal systems: Diego Fernandez Arroyo (Sciences Po, Paris), Gary Bell (National University Singapore), Franco Ferrari (New York University) and Cristiano Zanetti (Sao Paulo University); (ii) two linguists (in the pilot project): Lucia Busso (Aston University) and Chiara Zanchi (Pavia University); and (iii) two psychologists (in the main project): Bruno Laeng (Oslo University) and Michele Miozzo (Columbia University).
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