In this week's episode, Brian interviews Shirin Saif about witness examinations, while Joel gives an introductory lecture to UNCITRAL (prompted by the upcoming session in Working Group III - the advanced session will come in next week's episode, when Joel calls in from the Working Group meeting in Vienna). For Happy Fun Time, we display our lack of understanding - and our respect - for the UK system with barristers and Queen's Counsels and what have you.
As advertised earlier, we spend quite some time on dissenting opinions in arbitration - good, bad and ugly ones. Furthermore, can/should arbitrators be compelled to take the witness stand in domestic court, to talk about deliberations? Finally, we have a Happy Fun Time talking about the myriad of professional organisations out there.
To celebrate Brian's recent status as dual citizen, Joel gives him a quiz and also discusses the standing of dual national investors in investment arbitration. The second "substantive" segment sees Brian explaining some do's and don'ts with respect to opening statements. Finally, this week's Happy Fun Time is neither fun nor happy: we discuss #metoo and its implications for the field of international arbitration.
Joel is in The Hague and Brian has just returned from London. The former trip involves an interview with Kendra Magraw about sports arbitration, while Brian's London trip centered on the super-inspiring ITF Conference hosted by BIICL, which he summarizes with starry eyes. For Happy Fun Time, we try to figure out whether there is any meaningful difference between civil law and common law.
We use a recent ICSID decision in which the language was decided by coin toss as a reason to talk about the procedural language in arbitration more generally. Furthermore, we discuss how certain human rights issues interact with international arbitration and for Happy Fun Time, we clarify a thing or two on how to curate your online habits as an arbitration lawyer.
For this episode, we are joined for the entire session by Patricia Shaughnessy. The three of us discuss the relatively recent "summary procedure" instrument that has been added to the tribunal's toolbox by some arbitration institutions. We also spend the majority of the episode talking about Happy Fun Time-stuff related to education and career: is it advisable to do an LLM in international arbitration? How do employers feel about this type of specialised education?
In London, Brian speaks to Simon Wolfe about working with arbitration in a non-traditional firm setting. Back in Sweden, Joel tries to pronounce amicus curiae when talking about third party submissions in arbitration, while this week's Happy Fun Time concerns Jerusalem Arbitration Center.
In this week's episode we talk about appointing arbitrators: what considerations come into play and how do you get information on potential nominees? For Happy Fun Time, we (Brian, mostly) discuss strategies and insights that might be useful now that the problems for the moot arbitration competitions are being released.
Mentioned in the episode:
Vis Moot (problem just released)
Joel discusses the importance of the place of arbitration and Brian talks about document production. For Happy Fun Time, we've reviewed some examples when arbitration has been brought up in the pop culture context, such as TV shows and podcasts.
Mentioned in the episode:
The "Unseen Adjudicator" conference in The Hague
The Good wife S. 02 E. 20 (ICSID case with Venezuela)
The Good Wife S.04 E.12 (CAS)
The Good Wife, S.06 E. 03 (Christian arbitration)
Joel calls in from a remote cabin (although it sounds like he's reporting from the front; apologies for the sound quality, it will be better starting next episode) and talks to Brian about costs in international arbitration. Who pays for what and how are the costs distributed? For Happy Fun Time, we humbly give some advice on how to behave at arbitration conferences, now that conference season is coming up.
In the fourth episode, we talk about res judicata/issue preclusion and emergency arbitration. For Happy Fun Time, we argue over which and how many languages are necessary to master in order to succeed in today's arbitration market (spoiler alert: Brian does not consider English to be among them).
The third episode focuses on appointing authorities, as well as the EU's role in the future of investor-state arbitration. For the EU segment we talk to Hannes Lenk, who explains the much-discussed European Court of Justice Opinion 2/15 (although we also ask him about a lot of other stuff related to EU law and arbitration). The HAPPY FUN TIME topic addresses Machine Arbitrators - will they take our jobs?!
In the second episode, we talk to our first guest: Annette Magnusson, Secretary General of the Arbitration Institute at the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce (and, as such, the former boss of both of us). We talk to her about diversity in arbitration and the Equal Representation in Arbitration Pledge. Other topics include third party funding and The Bourne Arbitration, i.e. all the cool spy stuff that may be involved in international arbitrations but are not strictly something that most lawyers work with.
In the very first episode of The Arbitration Station, we discuss the use of administrative secretaries, tribunal deliberations and - HAPPY FUN TIME TOPIC - the virtues of doing a PhD in international arbitration.