Between Cultural Boundaries and Legal Traditions: Ethics in International Commercial Arbitration. Catherine Rogers

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Legal Studies Research Paper Series
Between Cultural Boundaries and Legal Traditions: Ethics in

International Commercial Arbitration
Catherine A. Rogers
Research Paper No. 06-01
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Between Cultural Boundaries and Legal Traditions:

Ethics in International Commercial Arbitration
By Catherine A. Rogers
International commercial arbitration dwells in an ethical no-mans land. Often by

design, arbitration is set in a jurisdiction where neither partys counsel is licensed.1
The extra-
territorial effect of national ethical codes is usually murky, as is the application of national
ethical rules in a non-judicial forum such as arbitration.2 There is no supranational authority to
oversee attorney conduct in this setting3 and local bar associations rarely if ever extend their
reach so far.4
Arbitral tribunals have no legitimate power to sanction,5 and specialized ethical
Assistant Professor of Law, Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University ([email protected]).
This Article began as part of my work in the master of laws program at Yale Law School, and is therefore indebted
primarily to my sister Elizabeth, whose generous sacrifices made the year of study possible. I also owe a
tremendous debt to Michael Reisman, who gave his guidance and support long before it was deserved. I am grateful
for the many helpful comments I received from Jim Bowers, Henry Brown, Jules Coleman, Mirjan Damaka, Bill
Dodge, David Faigman, Mary Kay Kane, Lars Kirchoff, Jason Kilborn, Alain Levasseur, Ted Schneyer, and
Michael Van Alstine. This Article was presented to various faculties during the AALS recruitment process and at
the Stanford-Yale Junior Faculty Forum and benefited from comments received there, particularly from those of
Thomas Heller, Michael Trebilcock, Keith Hylton and Judith Resnik. This Article was supported by a grant from
LSU, and is dedicated to Marco Ventoruzzo in special gratitude for transforming my inquiries about comparative
law into a living project.
1
See Detlev Vagts & William W. Park, National Legal Systems and Private Dispute Resolution, 82 A M. J.
INT L L. 616, 628 (1988) (describing how the arbitral seat rarely coincides with the parties citizenship or
residence); Ronald A. Brand, Professional Responsibility in a Transnational Transactions Practice, 17 J.L. &
COMM. 301, 333 (1998) (reviewing caselaw that affirms ability to represent clients in arbitrations in foreign
jurisdictions where counsel is not licensed).
2
See infra notes 68-71.
3
The only possible candidate is the International Bar Association (IBA), which, despite its name, cannot
accurately be understood as a supranational regulatory authority. The IBA is a federation of national bar associations
and law societies, not a licensing body that could impose any penalties for non-compliance. See infra note 242 and
accompanying text.
4
See IVO G. CAYTAS, TRANSNATIONAL LEGAL PRACTICE : CONFLICTS IN PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY 3
(1992) [hereinafter CAYTAS, TRANSNATIONAL LEGAL PRACTICE ] ([I]t is fairly rare that misconduct abroad
results in all to serious consequences at home (examples notwithstanding) . . . . [S]anctions remain essentially
local.).
5
The proposals in this Article include a new power for arbitrators to sanction attorneys who appear before
them for misconduct, which would represent a change from the current consensus that arbitrators do not have any
such power. For further discussion existing sources addressing an arbitrator sanction power and proposals for
implementing such a power, see infra section III.A.3.
DRAFTPlease Do Not Cite

or Quote Without Permission
norms6 for attorneys in international arbitration are nowhere recorded.7 Where ethical regulation
should be, there is only an abyss.
The purpose of this Article is to propose a methodology for developing ethical
norms to govern attorney conduct before international arbitral tribunals,8 and to design integrated
mechanisms for making those norms both binding and enforceable in international commercial
arbitration.9
As a predicate, in Part I, I assess the reasons why ethical regulation is needed in
In its comparative analyses, this Article uses the term ethical norms to include not only those ethical
principles that have been reduced to professional codes of ethics, but also those norms that are incorporated into
procedural rules (such as Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11), other legal rules (criminal and malpractice), as well as
customary norms that have a bearing on the definition of lawyers ethical role. See Fred C. Zacharias,
Reconceptualizing Ethical Roles, 65 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 169, 205 (1997). This broad approach is necessary for
accurate comparison because in the United States virtually all ethical norms (wherever else they exist) have also
been codified, but the same is not true in other nations. See Mary Daly, The Dichotomy Between Standards and
Rules: A New Way of Understanding the Differences in Perceptions of Lawyer Codes of Conduct by U.S. and
Foreign Lawyers, 32 VAND. J. TRANSNAT 'L L. 1117, n.184 (1999) [hereinafter Daly, Dichotomy Between
Standards and Rules]. Moreover, some systems treat particular conduct as implicating ethical considerations,
while others may treat the same conduct as solely a matter of procedure or discretionary strategy. In referring to
ethical norms that have been codified, I use the term rules. A more precise definition of ethical norms is bound
up in the thesis of this Article. See infra Part I.A.1.
7
As discussed elsewhere in this Article, there are other sources for ethical guidance in international crossborder practice, see infra notes 62-65, but they are limited in their scope and utility in international arbitration. See
Peter C. Thomas, Disqualifying Lawyers in Arbitrations: Do the Arbitrators Play Any Proper Role?, 1 A M. REV.
INT L A RB. 562, 563 (1990) (noting that despite the fact that issues relating to ethics in arbitration are complex and
intriguing, the area has not received significant attention from either scholars or regulators).
8
International commercial arbitration provides a unique incubator for development of international law and
consequently may provide insights that can be used to fashion similar advances in other public fora for international
adjudication. See Andreas F. Lowenfeld, Introduction: The Elements Of Procedure: Are They Separately Portable?,
45 A M. J. COMP . L. 649, 654-55 (1997) (arguing that lessons learned in international arbitration can aid in refining
national and international adjudicatory techniques and procedures). Cf. Christopher R. Drahozal, Commercial
Norms, Commercial Codes, and International Commercial Arbitration, 33 VAND. J. TRANSNAT L L. 89, 95 n.83)
(2000)) (arguing that, as a highly competitive business, international commercial arbitration is a valuable source for
evaluating commercial norms). Although my focus in this Article is on international commercial arbitration, the
absence of ethical codes for international advocates causes problems in other international adjudicatory contexts as
well. See Daly, Dichotomy Between Standards and Rules, supra note 6, at n.184 (describing ethical conflicts in the
Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal); Detlev F. Vagts, The International Legal Profession: A Need for More
Governance?, 90 A M. J. INT L L. 250, 250 (1996) [hereinafter Vagts, The International Legal Profession]
(describing problems in Iran Claims Tribunal caused by lack of ethical consensus among attorneys).
9
Arbitration is a form of adjudication by which parties confer, through private agreement, decisionmaking power on a non-governmental tribunal whose decision is made binding and enforceable through delimited
involvement of national courts. See Vagts & Park, supra note 1, at 631 (elaborating on the theory advanced in R.
DAVID, LA RBITRAL DANS LE COMMERCE INTERNATIONAL 9 (1982)); see also GARY B. BORN, INTERNATIONAL
COMMERCIAL A RBITRATION IN THE UNITED STATES: COMMENTARY & M ATERIALS 1 (1994). Notwithstanding the
relative ease with which arbitration can be defined at a practical level, there remains substantial debate about the
nature of arbitration. Is it a contractual arrangement, akin to settlement? Or is it better understood, as the Supreme

international arbitration.
There is a pervasive myth that broad consensus exists among the
nations of the world regarding attorney conduct.10 If this were true, then against the backdrop of
consensus, the presumably rare occurrences of ethical conflicts in arbitration could be dealt with
on an ad hoc basis or with only a few discreet rulesas opposed to an entire specialized code of
conduct and separate regime for enforcement.
I will demonstrate that in fact the apparent
consensus is merely acoustic agreement,11 which conceals deep divisions among national
ethical regimes.
As the field of players continues to expand, these divergences will become
increasingly problematic.
Compounding the existence of conflicts, the absence of an ethical regime in
international arbitration means there are no standards for arbitrators to identify and evaluate
misconduct, and no meaningful consequences for misconduct,12 even if it could be identified. In
Court likes to describe it, an alternative adjudicatory forum? Compare Allen Rau, Arbitration as Contract: One
More Word About First Options v. Kaplan, 12-3 M EALEYS INT L A RB. REP . 21 (1997) (arguing that arbitration is
above all a matter of private ordering); with Tom Carbonneau, Le Tournoi of Academic Commentary on Kaplan:
A Reply to Professor Rau, 4 M EALEYS INT L A RB. REP . 35 (1997) (rejecting the private ordering notion of
arbitration in favor of an approach that recognizes the public interest in adjudication). Moreover the practice of
arbitration has changed dramatically in recent years, from an informal system to a more sophisticated and formal
one.
10
See, e.g., T. LUND, PROFESSIONAL ETHICS 18 (1970) ([D]espite differences in legal systems, practices
and procedures, lawyers throughout the world have laid down for themselves substantially the same standards of
legal ethics.); David Luban, The Sources of Legal Ethics, 48 RABELS ZEITSCHRIFT FUR AUSLANDISCHES
UND INTERNATIONALES PRIVATRECHT 246, 264-267 (1984) (concluding that German and American ethical
rules are similar) (cited in Laurel S. Terry, An Introduction to the European Communitys Legal Ethics Part 1: An
Analysis of the CCBE Code of Conduct, 7 GEO. J. LEGAL ETHICS 1 & Appendix C (1993) [hereinafter Terry,
Introduction to the European Communitys Ethics Code]).
11
In comparative studies, it is easy to mistakenly assume that apparent similarities represent deeper
correspondence between different systems. See COMPARATIVE LAW : CASES-TEXT -M ATERIALS 481 (Rudolf B.
Schlesinger, et al., eds., 6th Edition) (1998) (using the term acoustic agreement to describe the readily apparent but
superficial commonalties between systems).
12
There may of course be informal consequences in terms of an attorneys reputation. The controlling
effects of what economists call reputational bonding are, however, limited outside the context of a small
community with repeat players. See Larry E. Ripstein, Ethical Rules, Agency Costs, and Law Firm Structure, 84
VA. L. REV. 1707 (1998) (arguing that clients rely primarily on attorneys reputation, which an attorney invests to
create and is therefore reluctant to risk by bad behavior); Ted Schneyer, Reputational Bonding, Ethical Rules, and
Law Firm Structure: The Economist as Storyteller, 84 VA. L. REV. 1777 (1998) (challenging the logic and empirical
support for Ribsteins reputational bonding theory and its supposed consequences for large law firms). The need

the earlier years of international arbitration, when the system was controlled by a small group of
lawyer-idealists, this void was filled by informal social norms and control mechanisms. As the
lawyer participants have increased and arbitration has become a more formal process, there is
less agreement about what is proper conduct, but also less room to tolerate ethical insurgency. 13
A code of ethics for international arbitration14 is needed to resolve the conflicts between the
ethics of national participants and to provide guidance in regulating attorney conduct in arbitral
proceedings.
Having established the need for a code of ethics for international arbitration, Part
II turns to the methodology to be used in developing the content of the code. I propose adoption
of what I call a functional approach to understanding national professional ethics and to
prescribing new ethical norms for international arbitration.
This approach focuses on the
relationship between morality and role, viewing professional ethical norms as a product of the
functional role served by the advocate-lawyer in relation to other actors within a particular legal
for ethical regulation in international arbitration is precipitated by the growth and diversification of the international
arbitration community, which has reduced the potential benefits that may come from reputational bonding.
13
Extended debate exists about whether there is any such thing as an international legal system.
Compare H.L.A. HART , THE CONCEPT OF LAW 79-99 (2d ed. 1994) (contending that international law lacks
secondary rules of recognition, adjudication, and change necessary to constitute a legal system); with Pierre-Marie
Dupuy, The Danger of Fragmentation or Unification of the International Legal System and the International Court
of Justice, 31 N.Y.U. J. INT 'L L. & POL. 791 (1999) (concluding that there is an international legal system and
challenging Harts analysis to the contrary); see also JOSEPH RAZ, THE CONCEPT OF A LEGAL SYSTEM (2d ed. 1980).
For the purposes of developing international ethical norms, it is not necessary to weigh in on this debate, or to
contemplate whether international commercial arbitration might constitute a sub-system or its own legal system. To
avoid confusion with this debate, I use the term system, rather than a legal system, to refer to the intricate
network of governmental, intergovernmental and private institutions, along with the national laws and international
agreements that facilitate the practice of international commercial arbitration. See REISMAN, SYSTEMS OF CONTROL,
supra note 57.
14
International commercial arbitration is not a monolithic institution. There are many different types of
arbitral institutions, each of which has somewhat unique functions and purposes. See infra notes Part II.D.2.
Because my thesis is that ethical norms should be developed through arbitral institutions, I am actually advocating
that there be multiple codes. For the sake of simplicity, however, I will refer to a code of ethics for arbitration in
the singular form.

system.15
Notwithstanding certain shared fundamental precepts, the nations of the world have
divergent views about the purposes and goals of adjudication and the role of advocates in their
legal systems.16
National ethical regimes impose on lawyers professional obligations that
promote and prescribe conduct consistent with the functions those systems have assigned to
advocates.17
To demonstrate the functional approach, I construct a comparative proof, which
explains the underlying reasons for differences among national ethical regimes. Based on these
findings, I explain why other proffered or possible approachesfrom a Law-and-Economics
efficiency-based approach, to a choice-of-laws approachcannot work to develop international
ethical norms.
The problem with all of these approaches is that they treat ethical norms as
autonomous principles, which can be mixed and matched between systems until some form of
consensus is attained.
The functional approach demonstrates that ethical regimes must be
tethered to the values of the systems in which they operate, as those values are expressed in the
15
In reality, lawyers act in many different roles, which means that they will inevitably face unique ethical
problems and the factors they must consider in solving those problems are likely to be different. See Fred C.
Zacharias, Fact and Fiction in the Restatement of the Law Governing Lawyers: Should the Confidentiality
Provisions Restate the Law?, 6 GEO. J. LEGAL ETHICS 903, 930-31 (1993) (suggesting that practice-specific codes
be drafted to guide attorneys in specialized fields).
16
This Article focuses primarily on those areas of ethical regulation that are necessary to guide lawyers
when they are acting in their capacity as advocates before international commercial arbitration tribunals. Such a
code can be narrower in scope than a code governing all cross-border practice, and need not address certain areas of
ethical regulation that are not directly implicated in advocacy in this setting, such as attorney advertising,
maintenance of client funds and contingency fees.
17
See Philip S.C. Lewis, Comparison and Change in the Study of Legal Professions 27-79, in LAWYERS IN
SOCIETY, VOLUME THREE, supra note 16 (Every legal system will have theories of the legal profession, which
usually can be deduced from their rules governing lawyers or describing proper representation.); John C. Reitz,
Why We Probably Cannot Adopt the German Advantage in Civil Procedure, 75 IOWA L. REV. 987 (1990) ([T]he
dutiful attorney is obviously a culturally specific standard); see also Roger J. Goebel, Professional Qualification
and Educational Requirements for Law Practice in a Foreign Country Bridging the Cultural Gap, 63 TUL. L. REV.
443, 520-22 (1989).

inter-relational roles assigned to the actors in that system.18
The content of norms for
international arbitration, therefore, must be developednot from national norms or abstract

ideas about the purpose of ethical normsbut from the defining features of international
commercial arbitration and the role of the advocate in that setting. The final sections of Part II
use the functional approach to recommend ethical norms that might be developed for an ethical
code for international commercial arbitration.
Identifying ethical norms is only the first step toward effective regulation of
attorneys in international commercial arbitration.
The rules must be integrated into the
international commercial arbitration system so that they can guide and regulate attorney
behavior. Integrating these norms means making participants aware of them, as well as making
them binding on and enforceable against parties and their attorneys.
I outline in Part III an
enforcement regime that will append ethical norms to existing bodies of arbitral rules, meaning
the rules promulgated by the major arbitral institutions.19
This approach will make their
application the product of party agreement and subject to party modification.
Enforcement of
these ethical norms will require that arbitrators be empowered to impose what I will call sanction
awards,20 and that attorneys be made personally subject to this new arbitrator power.21
To
18
See Judith Resnik, Tiers, 57 S. CAL. L. REV. 837, 837 (1984) (Procedure is a mechanism for expressing
political and social relationships.).
19
See infra section III.A. The most prominent arbitral institutions are the International Chamber of
commerce (ICC) in Paris, the American Arbitration Association (AAA) in New York, the London Court of
Arbitration (LCA), and the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce (SCC). See REISMAN, SYSTEMS OF CONTROL,
supra note 57, at 107. In addition to these stalwart institutions, there are a number of newer institutions that are
worth noting, such as the Chamber of National and International Arbitration of Milan (CNIAM) and Venice Court
of National and International Arbitration and the Chinese International Economic and Trade Arbitration Center
(CIETAC). As alternative to institutional arbitration, the United Nations Conference on International Trade Law
(UNCITRAL) has published rules for use in non-institutional or ad hoc arbitration. See id.
20
21
See infra section III.B.

See infra section III.C.

effectuate these new powers and liabilities, I propose that sanction awards be published22 and
national court review of such awards be enhanced over the minimal review that substantive
awards are subject to.23
Under this regime, the general ethical norms laid out in codes will be developed
and amplified through a body of arbitral jurisprudence that is subject to a partial review by
national courts.
National courts and bar organizations will provide the power and safeguards
necessary to ensure that the sanctioning of attorneys is both effective and fair. Moreover these
institutions will be able to protect their national interests in attorney regulation through
enforcement of fundamental limitations on the power to modify arbitral ethical codes.
An
enforcement regime that appears to privatize both ethical rule making and enforcement is bound
to have detractors.
In the final section of Part III, I answer the most significant substantive
objections and conclude that remaining symbolic objections must be overcome in light of the
overwhelming practical importance of international commercial arbitration and the inescapable
need for attorney regulation in this context.
I.
The Need for Enforceable Ethical Norms in International Commercial Arbitration

The primacy and legitimacy of arbitration as a forum for international commercial
disputes is a relatively recent phenomenon.
22
23
Despite its ancient history,24 up through the mid-
See infra section III.D.

See infra section III.E.
24
[P]rivate dispute resolution among commercial men is as old as commerce itself. W. Laurence Craig,
Some Trends and Developments in the Laws and Practice of International Commercial Arbitration, 22 TEX. INT L
L.J. 1, 2-11 (1995). For a more detailed description of the ancient history of arbitration, see Thomas J. Stipanowich,
Punitive Damages in Arbitration: Garrity v. Lyle Stuart, Inc. Reconsidered, 66 B. UNIV. L. REV. 953, n.3 (1986)
(citing F. KELLOR, AMERICAN A RBITRATION 3 (1948)) (dating commercial arbitration back to the time when
Phoenician and Greek traders roamed the ancient world and to the desert caravans of Marco Polo[.]); W.
DURANT , THE STORY OF CIVILIZATION: OUR COMMON HERITAGE 127, 361 (1935) (The ancient Sumerians,
Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans all had a tradition of arbitration.). The development of a formal system

nineteenth century, in Europe and the United States arbitration was regarded as bastard remedy
and arbitrators as caricatures of their judicial siblings.25
Arbitration agreements were routinely
voided26 and arbitral awards were subject to intense judicial scrutiny, sometimes even
rewriting.27
Only by virtue of domestic courts respect for principles of international comity
were arbitral awards enforced at all. 28

Today, the scene has changed.
International commercial arbitration holds an
exalted status 29 and is commonly revered as vital to world trade.30
Any nation interested in
of private dispute resolution is attributable to the medieval English courts of fairs and boroughs, which could
adjudicate disputes between merchants and traders at markets and fairs. For an expanded history of international
arbitration, see Craig, Some Trends, supra note 24, at 2-11 (tracing the important milestones in the development of
modern international arbitration).
25
See Thomas E. Carbonneau, Arbitral Justice: The Demise of Due Process in American Law, 70 TUL. L.
REV. 1945, 1947 (1996). The precise reasons for the common law hostility toward arbitration are unknown, but
some scholars surmise that they trace back to the English judges almost complete reliance on fees from cases for
their income, which meant that arbitrators were unwelcome competitors. See John R. Allison, Arbitration
Agreements and Antitrust Claims: The Need for Enhanced Accommodations of Conflicting Public Policies, 64 N.C.
L. REV. 219, 224 (1986). A second possible reason is the centuries long struggle by the early courts for jurisdiction
and their consequent unwillingness to surrender it. Id.; see also Kulukundis Shipping Co. v. Amtorg Trading Corp.,
126 F.2d 978, 983 & n.14 (2d Cir. 1942).
26
Throughout the nineteenth century, courts in the United States and England frequently invoked the
doctrine of ouster to void contractual arbitration clauses as unlawful circumventions of judicial jurisdiction and
as denials of judicial justice. Philip J. McConnaughay, The Risks and Virtues of Lawlessness: A Second Look at
International Commercial Arbitration, 93 NW . U. L. REV. 453 (1999) (citing Thomas E. Carbonneau, Arbitral
Adjudication: A Comparative Assessment of Its Remedial and Substantive Status in Transnational Commerce, 19
TEX. INT L L.J. 33, 39 n.12 (1984)); see also Edward Chukwuemeke Okeke, Judicial Review of Foreign Arbitral
Awards: Bane, Boon or Boondoggle?, N.Y. INT L L. REV. 29, 32 (1997).
27
For example, in England, courts were permitted to and routinely did revise legal determinations made by
arbitrators. See Thomas E. Carbonneau, Arbitral Justice: The Demise of Due Process in American Law, 70 TUL. L.
REV. 1945, 1948 (1996).
28
See Leonard V. Quigley, Accession by the United States to the United Nations Convention on the
Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, 70 YALE L. J. 1049, 1049-55 (1961).
29
See Stephen T. Ostrowski & Yuval Shany, Chromalloy: United States Law and International Arbitration
at the Crossroads, 73 N.Y.U.L. REV. 1650, 1650 (1998). Judicial critics of arbitration remain, although the focus of
modern criticisms is more on the protection of parties procedural rights and arbitrator adherence to the rule of law.
See, e.g., Bowles Fin. Group, Inc. v. Stifel Nicolaus & Co. 22 F.3d 1010, 1011 (10th Cir. 1994) (Arbitration
provides neither the procedural protections nor the assurance of the proper application of substantive law offered by
the judicial system.); Stroh Container Co. v. Delphi Indus., 783 F.2d 743, 751 n.12 (8th Cir. 1986) ([T]he
arbitration system is an inferior system of justice, structured without due process, rules of evidence, accountability
of judgment and rules of law.).

participating in the global economy must adjust its laws to accommodate the demands of
international arbitration.31
International commercial arbitration has transformed itself from a
bastard remedy into the crown prince of international dispute resolution.
Overcoming judicial
reticence may be characterized as a triumph over its image problem, but to accommodate modern
business needs international arbitration had to undergo a more substantive transformation, which
is described below in Section A. Section B documents the vast difference among national ethical
regulation and the ensuing need, in Section C, for a uniform code of ethics for international
commercial arbitration.
A. The Reformulation of International Arbitration

The story of international arbitrations modern status can be told in two acts, the
first being the early-modern period of arbitration in the early part of this century, and the second
its modern era of the last twenty years.
30
Nearly thirty years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court acknowledged that international arbitration is vital to the
global economy and U.S. participation in world trade. See Breman v. Zapata Off Shore Co., 407 U.S. 1 (1972);
Scherk v. Alberto-Culver Co., 417 U.S. 506 (1974).
31
See, e.g., Park, Safeguarding Procedural Integrity in International Arbitration, supra note 68 at 680
(documenting a scramble among western European nations to compete for international arbitration business); Sir
Michael J. Mustill, Arbitration: History and Background, 6 J. INT 'L A RB. 43, 53 (1989) (One must take note of the
efforts made by individual nations to make their arbitration laws . . . more attractive.). This trend extends to
developing countries, such as Mauritius, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and many Latin American countries, which in
recent years have made legal commitments to support international arbitration as part of an effort to facilitate trade
with foreign investors and business interests. See Arthur D. Harverd, The Concept of Arbitration and Its Role in
Society, THE COMMERCIAL W AY TO JUSTICE (Geoffrey M. Beresford Hartwell, ed. 1997); Donald Francis Donovan,
International Commercial Arbitration and Public Policy, N.Y.U. J. INT L L & POL. 645, 650-51 (1995); see also 10
W ORLD A RB. & M ED. REPORT 209 (1999) (The Turkish parliament's decision to approve a constitutional
amendment allowing for international arbitration in investment disputes should attract foreign investors to the multibillion dollar energy projects currently awaiting funding.); David L. Gregory, The Internationalization of
Employment Dispute Mediation, 14 N.Y. INT L L. REV. 2 (2000) (discussing potential for China in developing more
reliable international arbitration enforcement record).

1. The Judicialization of International Arbitration
Until about twenty years ago, arbitration was an ad hoc compromise-oriented
process characterized by its informality and emphasis on fairness.32 Arbitral decisions were not
revered so much for their legal accuracy or precision as much as for their sense of fairness and
practical wisdom. The arbitrator of yesteryear was often an expert from the same industry as the
parties,33 who exercised a sort of paternal (there were no women) 34 authority. The arbitrator was
expected to render a just and equitable result, even if that sometimes meant disregarding the
express terms of the contract or the clear provisions of chosen law. These modes of decisionmaking are sometimes described in terms of formal doctrines, such as amiable compositeur and
ex aequo et bono,35 which expressly authorize arbitrators to disregard the strictures of so-called
auxiliary rules, such as statutes of limitations, in order to justice.36
Another key attribute of arbitration in this era was the popular use of lex
mercatoria.
This unwritten law of merchants was developed by academics who were also
32
Yves Dezalay & Bryant Garth, Fussing About the Forum: Categories and Definitions as Stakes in
Professional Competition, 21 L. SOC. INQ. 285, 295 (1996).
33
See Craig, Some Trends, supra note 24, at 6 (Many arbitration clauses, or rules of trade associations,
specifically required that arbitrators be commercial men.).
34
See DEZALAY & GARTH, DEALING IN VIRTUE, supra note 55, at 34-35, 36-38.
35
See John Beechey, International Commercial Arbitration: A Process Under Review and Change,
A UG/OCT DIS. RES. J. 32 (2000). The doctrine of amiable composition, which is often translated to mean author of
friendly compromise, has been described as:
allow[ing] arbitrators to decide cases in accordance with customary principles of equity and
international commerce. This power permits arbitrators to arrive at an award that is fair in light of
all circumstances, rather than in strict conformity with legal rules[, but] . . . generally [they] may
not disregard mandatory provisions of substantive law or the public policy of the forum state.
Intervention and Joinder as of Right in International Arbitration: Infringement of Individual Contract Rights or a
Proper Equitable Measure?, 31 VAND. J. INT L L. 915, 932 (1998); see also CRAIG, INTERNATIONAL CHAMBER OF
COMMERCE A RBITRATION, supra note 101, at 8.04, p.137. . The doctrine of ex aequo et bono is very similar to
amiable compositeur, except that the powers of arbitrators are slightly broader, enabling them to disregard even
mandatory provisions of substantive law in order to reach an equitable outcome. See id.
36
See Christine Lecuyer-Thieffry & Patrick Thieffry, Negotiating Settlement of Dispute Provisions in
International Business Contracts: Recent Developments in Arbitration and Other Processes, 45 Bus. L. 577 (2000).
10

actively involved in arbitrations37 as a means to permit arbitrators to tailor decisions to the
customary trade usages and a gentile interpretation of the principles guiding international trade
law. The hallmark of lex mercatoria is its insistence the notion that a duty of good faith inform
all contract interpretation and performance.38
In applying the lex mercatorias requirement of
good faith, arbitrators could imply terms to achieve a more equitable result, such as a
requirement that ample notice of termination be given, even though the contract included no
such notice provision.39
These noble visions of business relations and dispute resolution that inspired
early-modern arbitration could be maintained in these times because international arbitration was
run by the small elite group of continental lawyers. Perhaps one of the ultimate testaments to the
intimacy of the international arbitration community, and the altruism that it bore, is that in this
period it was not anticipated that there would be a need for judicial enforcement of arbitral
awards.40 Instead, as the 1923 version of the ICC Arbitral Rules provided, it was believed that
parties were honor bound to comply with the award and would indeed do so.41
Over
the
past
twenty
years,
increases
in
both
competit 7
37
Professional Competition, 21 L. SOC. INQ. 285, 295 (1996). These principles are sometimes referred to as the new
lex mercatoria, because they are a modern reincarnation of a substantive law of merchants that was developed by
medieval English mercantile courts. See W. Laurence Craig, Some Trends and Developments in the Laws and
Practice of International Commercial Arbitration, 22 TEX. INT L L.J. 1, 6 (1995).
38
See id.
39
See ICC Partial Award in Case No. 5073 of 1986, 13 Y.B. Commercial Arb. 53, 65 (1988) (cited in
Drahozal, Commercial Norms, supra note 9, at 128).
40
See W. Laurence Craig, Some Trends and Developments in the Laws and Practice of International
Commercial Arbitration, Win. TEX. INT L L.J. 1, 7 (1995).
41
See id. It was expected that moral norms and the force that businessmen of a country can bring to bear
upon a recalcitrant neighbor would e sufficient to ensure respect for arbitral awards. Id.
11

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42
This trend is, as demonstrated by the provocative and insightful work of Dezalay and Garth, also likely
attributable to competition among the lawyers who participate in arbitration. See id. at 297-98.
12

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The term alternative dispute resolution is also inappropriate because in the international context there
is no viable alternative. The overwhelming practical problems that complicate the prosecution of international cases
in national courts and enforcement of their judgments, see supra Section I.B.2, make international litigation an
unreliable option. See Nicholas de B. Katzenbach, Business Executives and Lawyers in International Trade, in
SIXTY YEARS OF ICC ARBITRATION: A LOOK AT THE FUTURE 67-68 (1984) (explaining that while arbitration might
be a choice for domestic disputes, because there exists in national courts a reliable alternative, the unpredictability
and risks of failure in domestic litigation of international business disputes makes international arbitration the only
real option). For this reason, an estimated ninety percent of all international agreements contain arbitration clauses.
See KLAUS PETER BERGER, INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC A RBITRATION 8 n.62 (1993) (citing A LBERT JAN VAN DEN
BERG, ET AL ., A RITRAGERECHT 134 (1988)); see also Charles N. Brower, Introduction, in INTERNATIONAL
A RBITRATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY: TOWARDS JUDICIALIZATION AND UNIFORMITY (Richard B. Lillich &
Charles N. Brower, eds. 1993) (discussing popularity of ICC arbitration); Celia R. Taylor, National Iranian Oil Co.
v. Ashland Oil, Inc.: All Dressed Up and Nowhere To Arbitrate, 63 N.Y.U. L. REV. 1142, 1143-44 (1988)
(Comment) (same regarding AAA arbitration).
44
Professional Competition, 21 L. SOC. INQ. 285, 299 (1996). In the words of Dezalay and Garth:
The legitimacy of international commercial arbitration is no longer built on the fact that arbitration
is informal and close to the needs of business rather legitimacy now comes more from a
recognition that arbitration is formal and close to the kind of resolution that would be produced
through litigation.
See id. at 299.
14

45
See generally INTERNATIONAL A RBITRATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY: TOWARDS JUDICIALIZATION AND
UNIFORMITY (Richard B. Lillich & Charles N. Brower, eds. 1993).
15

RP
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had
been
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open-textured and subject to
improvisation, has become more definite and precise, both in content and form.47
While they
once left vast discretion to the arbitrator, modern arbitral procedural rules generally shift more
control to parties in the presentation of evidence and regulate arbitrator evaluation of evidence
through formal rules of evidence.48
Arbitral awards are being published with greater frequency
and are even making an appearance as persuasive authority cited to other arbitration panels.49
Selection of lex mercatoria by the parties is extremely rare,50 most likely because the definition
of custom among ever-expanding trade usages is harder to identify.
Moreover, the lex
mercatoria cannot provide adequate guidance for a range of statutory and so-called mandatory
law claims and defenses that are now asserted in modern business disputes.51
International arbitration has emerged as the preeminent means for resolving
46
Stephen Bonds study of 500 arbitration clauses from 1987 to 1989 revealed that only three percent of
clauses empowered the arbitrators to decide under these doctrines. See Drahozal, Commercial Norms, supra note 9,
at 129.
47
See infra notes 170-176, and accompanying text.
48
For a detailed discussion of the commonly chosen arbitral procedures, and their reduction to a
prefabricated set of default rules, see infra Section I.C.1.
49
Comparative Analysis of International Dispute Resolution Institutions, A M. SOC. INT L L. PROC. (1991)
(Mod. Barry e. Carter).
50
Bonds revealed that only a handful of clauses selected general principles and none expressly selected
lex mercatoria. See Drahozal, Commercial Norms, supra note 9, at 129.
51
For a description of the increase in mandatory law claims that can arise in arbitration, see infra notes
413-414, and accompanying text.
17

disputes that arise in the ever-expanding international arena. By the mid-1980s, at least, it had
become recognized that arbitration was the normal way of settlement of international
commercial disputes.52
As a consequence, its aspiration cannot be simply to provide ad hoc
remedial relief in individual cases.
It must develop into a fully operational transnational
adjudicatory process.53 The assertion of this Article is that effectively guiding and regulating the
conduct of attorneys who participate in the process is an essential part of that goal.
2. The International Legal Profession
The shift to more formal control mechanisms in the international arbitration
system is mirrored by the growing need for more formal regulation of the international legal
profession more generally.
Before the recent influx of new lawyers to the international
community, the naissant international legal profession was much like the early years of the
American legal profession, when [t]here [were] are only a few persons in the profession and
they knew what they are supposed to do. In the rare case that somebody [was] tempted to lapse
from grace, the prospect of disapproval by ones peers [was] deterrence enough.54
Informal
control mechanisms were particularly effective among lawyers involved in international

arbitration, because they were an intimate group of European practitioners who shared a tacit
52
Pierre Lalive, Transnational (or Truly International) Public Policy and International Arbitration, in
Comparative Arbitration Practice and Public Policy in Arbitration 257, 293 (Pieter Sanders, ed., 1987) (cited in
Craig, Some Trends, supra note 8, at 2) (emphasis added).
53
See Thomas E. Carbonneau, Rendering Arbitral Awards with Reasons: The Elaboration of a Common
Law of International Transactions, 23 COLUM.J. TRANSNAT L L. 579, 580 (1985).
54
Vagts, The International Legal Profession, supra note 8, at 250. For an exploration of how informal
controls are adequate to regulate small social groups, see ROBERT C. ELLICKSON, ORDER W ITHOUT LAW : HOW
NEIGHBORS SETTLE DISPUTES 130-32 (1991);
18

understanding of what constituted proper behavior.55
As the field of international lawyers has expanded in both numbers and cultural
vicissitudes,56 however, informal control mechanisms are no longer sufficient.57
In the context
of arbitration, new comers have arrived with a sense that their participation in arbitration is an
entrepreneurial venture, and they are thus less constrained by established traditions or an inherent
sense of obligation to the system than were the grand old men, who regarded their service in
arbitration as a duty not a career.58
As the constraints of social norms break down in the
arbitration community and the international legal profession more generally, there is nothing to
take its place.
Regulation of the legal profession remains local in both scope and
administration, often providing little guidance.59
The phenomenon can be imagined as
contrasting world maps: Regulation of legal attorneys is tied to the geographic boundaries drawn
55
See Yves Dezalay & Bryant Garth, Dealing in Virtue: International Arbitration and the Construction of a
Transnational Legal Order 34-36 (1996) [hereinafter Dezalay & Garth, Dealing in Virtue] (describing the grand
old men who played a central role in the emergence and recognition of arbitration).
56
The ranks of international lawyers now also include small firms and solo practitioners. See Mary C.
Daly, Practicing Across Borders: Ethical Reflections for Search Term Begin Small-Firm Search Term End and
Search Term Begin Solo Search Term End Practitioners, PROF. LAW ., June 1995, at 123;
57
See Professor Dr. Karl Carstens, Preface in CAYTAS, TRANSNATIONAL LEGAL PRACTICE , supra note 4
(noting that with the globalization of legal services, lawyers must become more award that [w]hat is appropriate,
even mandatory under one regime may not be, and may indeed be even reprehensible under another); Vagts, The
International Legal Profession, supra note 8, at 251 (As the activities of international law agencies, both public and
private, involve more countries and more cultures, disputes about standards of behavior can be expected to
multiply.); see also W . MICHAEL REISMAN, SYSTEMS OF CONTROL IN INTERNATIONAL A DJUDICATION &
A RBITRATION: BREAKDOWN AND REPAIR 6 (1992) [hereinafter REISMAN, SYSTEMS OF CONTROL] (noting more
generally that in international arbitration, informal control mechanisms are inadequate in the context of modern
transnational arbitration [which has] increased as a function of the expansion of transnational activity).
58
As Dezalay and Garth describe, there is a generational warfare between the grand old men and the
new entrants regarding the future direction of international commercial arbitration. See DEZALAY & GARTH,
DEALING IN VIRTUE, supra note 55, at 34-35 & 36-38.
59
See Brand, supra note 1, at 302. The obscurity surrounding ethical regulation of international practice is
best demonstrated U.S. Model Rule 8.5, which regulates to cross-border practice but expressly disavows any
application in the international context: The choice of law provision [in Rule 8.5] is not intended to apply to
transnational practice. Choice of law in this context should be the subject of agreements between jurisdictions or of
appropriate international law. The problem is that there does not appear to be any such international law or
agreements. See Detlev Vagts, International Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility, 92 A M. SOC. INT L L.
PROC. 378, 378 (1998) [hereinafter Vagts, International Legal Ethics].
19

on a political map of the world, but the practice of law and movement of lawyers more closely
resembles a constantly moving radar images of world weather patterns.60
Even when the international lawyer was still a relatively rare breed, Professor W.
Michael Reisman recognized the need to regulate them at an international level.61 As the number
of international lawyers has multiplied, a number of scholars and practitioners have echoed
Professor Reismans call for an international code of ethics.62
Despite the significant outcry,
however, proposed solutions have been both rare and incomplete,63 particularly with respect to
international arbitration. The limited work that has been done in the area of international ethics
60
This image is borrowed from Bernard L. Greer, Jr., Professional Regulation and Globalization: Toward
a Better Balance, in GLOBAL PRACTICE OF LAW 170 (J. Ross Harper, ed. 1997).
61
See W. M ICHAEL REISMAN, NULLITY AND REVISION: THE REVIEW AND ENFORCEMENT OF
INTERNATIONAL JUDGMENTS AND A WARDS 116-17 (1971) [hereinafter REISMAN, NULLITY AND REVISION].
62
See, e.g., Vagts, The International Legal Profession, supra note 8, at 250; Malini Majumdar, Ethics in
the International Arena: The Need for Clarification, 9 GEO. J. LEGAL ETHICS 439 (1995); Hans Smit, The Future of
International Commercial Arbitration: A Single Transnational Institution?, 25 COLUM. J. TRANSNAT L L. 9, 22
(1986); John Toulmin, A Worldwide Common Code of Professional Ethics?, 15 FORDHAM INT L L. REV. 673
(1992); Robert M Jarvis, Cross-Border Legal Practice and Ethics Rule 4-8.5: Why Greater Guidance is Needed, 72
FLA. B.J. 59 (1998); see also Martin Hunter, Ethics of the International Arbitrator, 53 A RBITRATION 219, 220
(1987) (concluding that the world of commercial arbitration to be no longer a club of gentlemen, but one that needs
explicit guidelines for conduct).
63
See, e.g., Laurel S. Terry, A Case Study of the Hybrid Model for Facilitating Cross-Border Legal
Practice: The Agreement Between the American Bar Association and the Brussels Bars, 21 FORDHAM INT L L. J.
1382 (1998) ([D]espite the increase in scholarly writing on this topic, the development of cross-border practice
throughout the world has vastly outpaced the theory of whether and how such practice should be regulated;); Justin
Castillo (Reporter), International Law Practice in the 1990s: Issues of Law, Policy and Professional Ethics, 86 A M.
SOCY INT L L. PROC. 272 (International . . . ethics is an area where there is little solid information available.). Of
particular interest are some recent conferences, including a conference, co-sponsored by the Council of the Bars and
Law Societies of the European Community (CCBE) and the Stein Institute of Law and Ethics, the results of which
were published in a book under the editorial supervision of Professors Mary C. Daly and Roger J. Goebel of
Fordham Law School. See RIGHTS LIABILITY AND ETHICS IN INTERNATIONAL LEGAL PRACTICE (Mary C. Daly &
Roger J. Goebel, eds. 1994). The results of another more recent conference, the Paris Forum on Transnational
Practice for the Legal Profession in 1998, were published under the direction of Laurel Terry in the Dickinson
Journal of International Law. See generally Symposium: Paris Forum on Transnational Practice for the Legal
Profession, in 18 DICKINSON J. INT L L., Vol. 1 (1999). One of the few truly prescriptive pieces is by Professor
Richard Abel, whose earlier works on the sociology of lawyers will undoubtedly aid in all future discussion in this
area. Richard Abel, Transnational Law Practice, 44 CASE W. RES. L. REV. 737, 762-63 (1994) (offering proposals
of how lawyers, professional organizations and governments can regulate transnational law practice).
20

aims primarily at promoting awareness of the problem64 and focuses almost exclusively on the
distinct but related problems facing cross-border practice.65
In cross-border practice, where professional activities are performed in one
jurisdiction by an attorney licensed in another, problems arise because two sovereigns (one in the
attorneys home jurisdiction and one in the host jurisdiction) have an interest in regulating the
same attorney. 66 In the context of attorney solicitation, for example, even though an attorneys
home jurisdiction may permit advertisement, another jurisdiction in which a foreign attorney
may advertise has a competing interest in applying its rule prohibiting such advertisement.67 The
home and host jurisdictions compete to regulate the attorney.
In international commercial
arbitration, by contrast, there is no regulatory competition.

International arbitration occurs in an a-national space internationally disassociated
with any sovereign.68
While arbitration physically takes place within the geographic boundaries
64
There is only one brief article squarely addressing attorney ethics in international arbitration, which aims
more at raising questions than resolving them. See Mark P. Zimmett, Ethics in International Commercial Litigation
and Arbitration, 626 PLI/Lit. 361 (2000). Cf. Thomas, Disqualifying Lawyers in Arbitrations, supra note 7
(addressing related procedural issues of attorney disqualification in arbitration proceedings, but disclaiming any
attempt to encompass ethical regulation issues). Most work regarding ethics in international arbitration has
addressed the ethical obligations of arbitrators. See, e.g., Chiara Giovannucci Orlandi, Ethics for International
Arbitrators, 67 U.M.K.C. L. REV. 93 (1998). My purpose in this Article is primarily to address attorney ethics, not
arbitrator ethics, although some of the issues overlap (such as the issue of ex parte contact), and the methodology
proposed in this Article may also be helpful in addressing remaining problems of arbitrator ethics. See infra note
234-35, and accompanying text.
65
See Detlev Vagts, Professional Responsibility in Transborder Practice 13 GEO. J. LEGAL ETHICS 677,
677 (2000) (noting the increasing problems because attorney are subject to rule of different bar authorities [which]
lay down quite different rules within their jurisdictions).
66
The preeminent basis for prescriptive jurisdiction in the area of legal ethics is territoriality, meaning a
state can regulate persons who appear in their courts, maintain offices, or conduct other transactions within its
territory. Vagts, Professional Responsibility in Transborder Practice supra note 20, at 689. The second most
prevalent basis for jurisdiction is nationality of the attorneys, or in the case of bar organizations, membership. See
id. at 689-90 (citing the Restatement of Foreign Relations Law).
67
See Louise L. Hill, Lawyer Publicity in the European Union: Bans Are Removed but Barriers Remain,
29 GEO. W ASH. J. INT L L. & ECON. 381 (1995)
68
See DEZALAY & GARTH, DEALING IN VIRTUE, supra note 55, at 17. In most international arbitrations,
the situs for arbitration is chosen either by happenstance, for reasons of logistics and convenience, or because of its
21

of one nation, the so-called host state is constrained by design and agnostic by choice.
Consequently, there is no host state regulation.
Meanwhile, most so-called home state
ethical rules do not purport to govern attorney conduct in alternative fora such as arbitration.69
Even if home state ethical regulations purported to reach into arbitration, they would not be
binding on opposing foreign lawyers or non-lawyer representatives, which most jurisdictions will
permit to represent parties in arbitration.70
The primary problem in international arbitration,
therefore, is not competition among regulators, but an absence of regulation.

In the absence of authoritative regulation, attorneys show up believing that they
are still bound by the ethical obligations imposed by their home jurisdictions, or at least they
neutrality in relation to the dispute and to the parties. Thomas E. Carbonneau, The Remaking of Arbitration:
Design and Destiny 27, in LEX M ERCATORIA AND A RBITRATION (Thomas E. Carbonneau, ed., 1998). The New
York Convention generally permits the nation where arbitration takes place to exercise an expanded role in
reviewing arbitral awards. In an effort to attract more international arbitration, however, many nations have
declined this opportunity and have instead legislated to constrain court review of awards from arbitrations taking
place within their boundaries. The most prominent examples are Belgium (which prohibits national courts
completely from overturning any international arbitral award even in the instance of arbitrator fraud) and
Switzerland (which permits parties to elect such prohibition by agreement). See William W. Park, National Law
and Commercial Justice: Safeguarding Procedural Integrity in International Arbitration, 63 TUL. L. REV. 647, 649
(1989).
69
In the United States, only a few states have attempted to make their ethical rules directly applicable in
arbitration. See, e.g., Disciplinary Rules of the Code of Prof. Resp., N.Y. Jud. Law, Appendix (effective September
1, 1990) (McKinney Supp. 1991) (containing a single statement in the appendix to the effect that rules apply in ADR
settings as well).
70
See Brand, supra note 1, at 335 (noting that notwithstanding applicability state ethical rules to statelicensed attorneys, a bar opinion permits parties to international arbitration to be represented by non-state-licensed
attorneys); Toby S. Myerson, The Japanese System, in RIGHTS LIABILITY AND ETHICS IN INTERNATIONAL LEGAL
PRACTICE 69 (Mary C. Daly & Roger J. Goebel, eds., 1994) (noting that even traditionally restrictive Japanese law
changed recently to permit non-Japanese-licensed attorneys to engage in international arbitrations in Japan). The
problem is that, notwithstanding attempts to shoehorn ethical rules into the arbitration context, drafters of ethical
norms simply did not directly address the extension of their application into the arbitration context. See Carrie
Menkel-Meadow, Ancillary Practice And Conflicts Of Interests: When Lawyer Ethics Rules Are Not Enough, 13
A LTERNATIVES TO HIGH COST LITIG. 15 (1996) ([T]he ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct were not drafted
with ADR in mind and efforts to fit ADR practice into the rules of more conventional advocacy will not always
work.); Vagts, The International Legal Profession, supra note 8, at 378 (noting that it is unclear whether the Model
Rules apply in arbitration proceedings). In the setting of international arbitration, debate about the nature and
extent to which national ethical norms apply is even more open-ended. See Thomas, Disqualifying Lawyers in
Arbitrations, supra note 7 (When an English barrister suggested a couple of years ago that an advocate in a private
22

come with advocacy techniques and professional habits formed by practicing in accordance with
those rules.71
The problem, of course, is that the ethical regulations of various countries are
often significantly different, and, when thrust into the same proceedings, these differences can
cause problems. The next section examines the extent of those differences.
B. The Degree of Divergence Among National Ethical Norms

Roughly speaking, all the nations of the world agree on certain universal norms
that inform all legal ethics.
For our purposes, these universal norms can be distilled down to
truthfulness, fairness, independence, loyalty and confidentiality.
While all systems appear
committed to these four ideals, I will demonstrate that this consensus at the core exists only in
abstract generalities, which translate into radically different obligations for attorneys in
individual systems.72
1. Truthfulness
By most accounts, the primary if not sole purpose of adjudication is to discern
truth.73 Truth is universally acknowledged as the intended product of adjudication, but also as an
commercial arbitration was not bound by the same duties owed by counsel to a court, the immediate (near
unanimous) response was shock and indignation.).
71
Whether or not these ethical norms actually translate into binding obligations in international arbitration,
as a practical matter, they are habits that lawyers generally adhere to in the context of arbitration, even when they
conflict with the practices of opposing counsel.
72
See Vagts, International Legal Ethics, supra note 59, at 378 (National rules on professional ethics differ
in critical ways, leaving confusion about how they should apply internationally.). It is not necessary (or even
possible) in this Article to offer a precise measurement of the extent of divergence between national ethical norms.
The primary purpose of this comparison is to demonstrate that the differences are significant enough to require
development of a code of ethics for international arbitration. To the extent that a more precise assessment of the
differences becomes necessary or desirable, the project will inevitably involve extensive systematic research, such
as used by Ugo Mattei to evaluate the similarities and differences in private law. See Mauro Bassani & Ugo Mattei,
The Common Core Approach to European Private Law, 3 Col. J. Eur. L. 338 (1998).
73
See Mirjan Damaka, Truth in Adjudication, 49 HASTINGS L.J. 289, 289 (1998). The perception that
truth is the all-important goal of adjudication is not always accurate. It is argued that some systems, such as the
23

essential element in the process.
The importance of truth in the adjudicatory process is
manifested in time-honored ethical prohibitions against perjury,74 against attorney assistance in

perjury75 and against attorney misrepresentations of fact to the tribunal.76
Apart from these
extreme instances of misconduct, legal systems have developed different interpretations of what
demands of truth require from counsel.77
The paradigmatic example of these differences, which will guide the discussion
throughout this Article, is the treatment of pre-testimonial communication between counsel and
witnesses.78 Imagine an arbitration involving Germany and American parties, with counsel from
United States, prioritize justice over truth in adjudication. See John Thibaut & Laurens Walker, A Theory of
Procedure, 66 CALIF. L. REV. 541 (1978) (challenging the view that the fundamental objective of the U.S. legal
process is the discovery of truth).
74
Prohibitions against perjury transcend both time and cultures. See Richard H. Underwood, Perjury: An
Anthology, A RIZ. J. INT L & COMP . L. 307 (1996) (explaining the ancient Roman laws against perjury and
punishments meted out for violations) (citing 1 JAMES STACHEN-DAVIDSON, PROBLEMS OF THE ROMAN
CRIMINAL LAW 41-42 (1969)); Richard H. Underwood, False Witness: A Lawyers History of the Law of
Perjury, 10 A RIZ. J. INT L & COMP . L. 215 (1993) (surveying laws against perjury in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia,
ancient India, Greece, the Ashanti society in Africa, medieval Europe and early America).
75
The historical evidence of formal prohibitions against lawyers encouraging perjury is ample, although
not as extensive as those directly against perjury. Ninth century Roman law punished with seven years of penance
he who leads another in ignorance to commit perjury, Mesopotamian law punished with death anyone who
threatened a witness, and ancient Indian laws prohibited coaching witnesses. See Richard H. Underwood, False
Witness: A Lawyers History of the Law of Perjury, 10 A RIZ. J. INT L & COMP . L. 215 (1993). Today, all legal
systems prohibit, either through criminal laws or professional ethics, lawyers from abetting or encouraging perjurous
testimony.
76
See, e.g., CHARLES F. W OLFRAM, M ODERN LEGAL ETHICS 12.3.3, p. 641 (1986).
77
This divergence should not be surprising when it is considered that meaning of truth in relation to
adjudicatory decision-making is variable from culture to culture and has, even within particular cultures, evolved
dramatically over time. See, e.g., J.S. Ghandi, Past and Present: A Sociological Portrait of the Indian Legal
Profession, in LAWYERS IN SOCIETY: VOLUME I: THE COMMON LAW W ORLD (Richard L. Abel & Phillip S.C.
Lewis, eds. 1988) (describing the transition in India from precolonial notions that only the king or judge had the
power and technical knowledge to find truth, with the modern notion of legal representation, which regards truth as
the product of negotiation and participation by lawyers). In a more proximate example, the civil jurys role in
Medieval England was not so much to pass on our modern understanding of the truth of the events that transpired,
even though they took an oath to that effect. Instead, juries of the 13th and 14th Centuries acted as quasi-witnesses,
ministering what we would consider justice rather than discerning what we would consider truth. See Mirjan
Damaka, Rational and Irrational Proof Revisited, 5 CARDOZO J. INT L & COMP . L. 25, 29 (1997); Trisha Olson, Of
Enchantment: The Passing of the Ordeals and the Rise of the Jury Trial, 50 SYR. L. REV. 109, 181-2 (2000).
78
See W OLFRAM, supra note 76, at 647-48; 3 J. W IGMORE , EVIDENCE 788 (J. Chadbourne rev. 1970). As
this example demonstrates, much of the contest between national ethical norms is bound up in the language chosen
24

their respective countries. The German attorneys will show up believing that they are prohibited
from communicating with witnesses about the facts of the case or upcoming testimony, and that
such misconduct might be punishable by serious criminal penalties for witness tampering.79
The U.S. attorneys, on the other hand, will arrive on the scene with the view that preparing a
witness to testify is not only standard practice,80 but also necessary to avoid committing
to frame the issues. Characterizing the conduct as a practice of witness preparation makes the German perspective
seem reactionary, while characterizing it as witness tampering makes the American perspective seem lawless. For
a more full discussion of the way language affects comparative analysis and related problems, see Catherine A.
Rogers, Gullivers Troubled Travels, or The Conundrum of Comparative Law, 67 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 149, 171
n.110 (1998) (review essay). This problem is exacerbated in the context of discussing a subject such as professional
ethics, where there exists substantial debate even within a particular legal community about the meaning of the
value-laden terms that shape the dialogue. See David B. Wilkins, Who Should Regulate Lawyers, 105 HARV. L.
REV. 799, 853 (1992); Chiara Giovannucci Orlandi, Ethics for International Arbitrators, 67 U.M.K.C. L. REV. 93,
94 (1998).
79
See, e.g., Mirjan Damaka, Presentation of Evidence and Factfinding Precision, 123 U. PA. L. REV.
1083, 1088-89 (1975) [hereinafter Damaka, Presentation of Evidence) (Coaching witnesses [in inquisitorial
systems] comes dangerously close to various criminal offenses of interfering with the administration of justice as
well as contrary to professional canons of ethics.); John H. Langbein, The German Advantage in Civil Procedure, 52
U. CHI. L. REV. 823, 834 (1985) (The German lawyer virtually never [has] out-of-court contact with a witness,
because, under the German rules of ethics, a lawyer may interview witnesses out of court only when it is justified
by special circumstances. He has to avoid even the appearance of influencing the witness and is, in principle, not
allowed to take written statements.); see also John Langbein, Trashing the German Advantage, 82 NW . U. L. REV.
763, 767 (1988) (noting that the prohibition is not absolute and communication with witnesses is permitted in cases
of unusual necessity). While it may not be likely that communication with a witness in an arbitration will expose
the attorney to the possibility of discipline at home since national ethical rules are not generally applicable in
arbitration, attorneys incorporate their national ethical constraints into their habitual decision-making and are
consequently likely to continue a practice until presented with a countervailing and controlling rule.
80
See Hamdi & Ibrahim Mango Co. v. Fire Assoc. of Philadelphia, 20 F.R.D. 181 (S.D.N.Y. 1957)
(acknowledging that it is a usual and legitimate practice for ethical and diligent counsel, in preparing their witnesses
for either deposition or trial testimony, to confer with each witness before testimony is given). Similarly, in England
barristers routinely interview client and expert witnesses, and solicitors interview fact witnesses as well as review
potentially difficult questions that may come up on cross-examination. See W OLFRAM, supra note 76, at 648 & n.
92 (1986) (citing H. Cecil, Brief to Counsel 648 & n.92 (2d ed. 1972). To be sure, the Anglo-American rule does
not permit all manner of contact with witnesses. Limitations exist, and overly suggestive witness preparation
could cross the line into subornation of perjury. See id. at 648; Joseph D. Piorkowski, Professional Conduct and the
Preparation of Witnesses for Trial: Defining the Acceptable Limitations of Coaching, 1 GEO. J. LEGAL ETHICS
389, 390-91 (1987) (Note) (describing an attorneys goals during witness preparation as aiding the witness to tell the
truth, organize the facts, introduce the witness to the legal process, instill the witness with self-confidence, eliminate
opinion and conjecture from the testimony, make the witness understand the importance of his or her testimony and
teach the witness to fight anxiety against cross-examination). Because of perceived dangers, some courts prohibit
lawyers from speaking to non-client witnesses during recesses in testimony. See W OLFRAM, supra note 76, at 64849.
25

malpractice if not an ethical breach.81
In the absence of a code of ethics that applies in
international arbitration, attorneys have no reason to abandon the ethical practices, and no
justification for disregarding the ethical strictures, of their home jurisdictionseven if they
conflict with those of their opponents.
While pre-testimonial communication is one of the most obvious differences, it is
only the protruding tip of a very large iceberg.
on attorneys with regard to client testimony.
Systems also impose very different obligations
A growing number of U.S. ethics codes require
attorneys to disclose client intentions to commit perjury, even if those intentions would otherwise
be considered confidential communications.82
Most European ethical codes, by contrast, include
no such obligation, even though European attorneys are generally required to disclose unlawful
conduct or potentially unlawful conduct by a client.83
In addition to diverging on the subject of attorney complicity in perjury,
systems set very different boundaries for what constitutes truthful conduct by attorneys.
In
81
Although not defined in U.S. codes as a formal ethical obligation, several courts have treated failure to
prepare a witness as a breach of the duty of competent representation. See, e.g., In re Stratosphere Corp. Securities
Litigation, 182 F.R.D. 614 (D. Nev. 1998) (characterizing witness preparation as an ethical obligation incumbent
on attorneys); D.C. Bar Op. No. 79 (1979), reprinted in District of Columbia Bar, Code of Professional
Responsibility and Opinions of the District of Columbia Bar Legal Ethics Committee 138, 139 (1991) (stating that
an attorney who had the opportunity to prepare a witness but failed to do so would not be properly doing his
professional job); Hall v. Clifton Precision, 150 F.R.D. 525, 528 (E.D. Pa. 1993) (implying that an attorney has the
right and the duty to prepare a client for deposition).
82
See Terry, Introduction to the European Communitys Legal Ethics, supra note 10, at 47.
Notwithstanding this apparent trend, there is relatively little agreement even within the United States about the scope
of attorney obligations in the face of client perjury or the threat of client perjury. See Philip J. Grib, A Lawyers
Ethically Justified Cooperation in Client Perjury, 18 J. LEGAL PROF. 145 (1993) (explaining and critiquing
various positions on the ethical responsibilities in the context of client perjury).
83
See Terry, Introduction to the European Communitys Legal Ethics, supra note 10, at 46-57. To the
casual observer, this apparent exception for client perjury seems to be something of an anomaly even within
Continental systems. Before demystifying this point, I will add further intrigue by noting that perjury by a party in a
civil action was not even a crime until relatively recently and, even now, false testimony by a party is only a
criminal offense in extraordinary circumstances (such as false accusation of an innocent party). See M IRJAN R.
DAMAKA, THE FACES OF JUSTICE AND STATE A UTHORITY: A COMPARATIVE A PPROACH TO THE LEGAL PROCESS
26

making arguments to a court, American attorneys are permitted to urge any possible
construction of the law favorable to his client, without regard to his professional opinion as to the
likelihood that the construction will ultimately prevail.84
This room for creativity is bounded
only by strategic considerations and the stricture against wholly frivolous arguments.85
By
contrast, in Continental systems, creative arguments that are not, in the attorneys professional
opinion, likely to prevail, would be considered professionally irresponsible, if not sanctionable.86
Thus, while all systems are in theory committed to truth and impose ethical obligations on
counsel accordingly, those obligations are widely divergent among various systems.
2. Fairness
Another fundamental and universal principle of adjudication is fairness.
Fairness
in adjudication is premised on the impartiality of the tribunal,87 a concept that has been embraced
130 & n.60 (1986) [hereinafter DAMAKA, FACES OF JUSTICE ]. For an explanation of how this apparent lack of
concern over attorney complicity in perjury is in fact a by-product of protections against perjury, see infra note167.
84
Model Code of Professional Responsibility, Ethical Consideration 7-4 (1980).
85
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 provides that the signature of lawyer warrants that a document filed
with the court is well grounded in fact or law or, if arguing for a change in the law, that it is not interposed to harass
or delay proceedings or for any improper purpose. See FED. R. CIV. P. 11; see also Victor H. Kramer, Viewing Rule
11 as a Tool to Improve Professional Responsibility, 75 M INN. L. REV. 793 (1991); Neal H. Klausner, The
Dynamics of Rule 11: Preventing Frivolous Litigation by Demanding Professional Responsibility, 61 N.Y.U. L
REV. 300 (1986).
86
Lawyers are expected to present only the applicable law to the judge and not to argue by analogy to other
cases, as common in American courts. See Olga M. Pina, Systems of Ethical Regulation: An International
Comparison, 1 GEO J. LEGAL ETHICS 797, 798 (1988); Lauren R. Fran, Ethical Responsibilities and the
International Lawyer: Mind the Gaps, 2000 U. ILL. L. REV. 957, 973 (2000)(Note). In this respect, British
barristers are regulated more like Continental attorneys than American attorneys. See CODE OF CONDUCT OF THE
BAR OF ENGLAND AND W ALES para. 610(b) (1993), reprinted in Rules of Conduct for Counsel and Judges: A Panel
Discussion on English and American Practices: Appendix, 7 GEO. J. LEGAL ETHICS 685, 892 (1994) (prohibiting
barristers from asserting personal opinions about the facts or law. In addition to formal constraints, European feeshifting statutes create significant financial disincentives, which also undoubtedly deter creative argument by
counsel. See Werner Pfenningstorf, The European Experience with Attorney Fee-Shifting, 47 LAW & CONTEMP .
PROBS. 37, 45-56 (1984).
87
Impartiality is part of the definition of a good judge A RTHUR T. VANDERBILT , JUDGES AND JURORS 19
(1958). The U.S. symbol of justice, Justicia, is blindfolded to avoid the pitfalls of favoritism and demonstrate her
impartiality. See Dennis E. Curtis & Judith Resnik, Images of Justice, 96 YALE L.J. 1727, 1727-28 (1987).
27

by all societies, from modern European nations to traditional African tribes and ancient Indian
civilizations.88
Impartiality is an attribute of adjudicators that in turn demands audi alteram
partem, or equality of the parties.89 For an adjudication to be fair, the tribunal must approach the
case from an unbiased perspective and the parties must have equal opportunities to present their
case and persuade the decision-maker.90
These principles require prohibitions against obvious
transgressions, such as bribing adjudicators to secure victory91 or otherwise providing them with
a direct stake in the outcome of the case.92
Outside of these obvious prohibitions, however, the concept of fairness and
even the more particular requirement of an impartial decision-maker is subject to varying
interpretations, which again result in divergent ethical requirements.93
Some systems tolerate
even celebratebehavior that other systems find incompatible with notions of fairness.94
For
88
See V.S. MANI, INTERNATIONAL A DJUDICATION: PROCEDURAL A SPECTS 16-17 (1980). As told in the
Sanskrit play Mrichchakatika, as far back as 485 B.C., courts in India honored this principle by not allowing the fact
that a complainant was the kings brother-in-law to influence the courts integrity. See id. at 17.
89
See id. at 16-17.
90
For instance, in the United States, Model Rule 3.5, pertaining to Impartiality and Decorum of the
Tribunal, provides that [a] lawyer shall not: (a) seek to influence a judge, juror, prospective juror or other official
by means prohibited by law; [or] (b) communicate ex parte with such a person except as permitted by law. Model
Rules, Rule 3.5(a)-(b).
91
In addition to being a violation of ethical codes, most countries have criminalized the payment of bribes
to judges. Bribery of judges will also likely soon be the subject of an international convention. See Draft
Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions,
OECD/DAFFE/IME/BR(97)16/FINAL (Dec. 18, 1997), reprinted in 37 I.L.M. 1 (1998) (visited Mar. 4, 1999)
(committing signatories to treat bribery of judges as a criminal offence).
92
See W OLFRAM, supra note 76, at 604-06. In the United States, the principle has been held to preclude an
old practice under which judges derived their income based on the number of convictions they presided over. See
Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U.S. 510 (1927) (concluding that under this arrangement, the judge would have a direct,
personal, substantial, pecuniary interest in the outcome of the case).
93
See DAMAKA, FACES OF JUSTICE , supra note 83, at 1 ([A]ll states subscribe to the view that judges
should be independent . . . but the unanimity begins to break down as soon as one considers the implications of those
views and their operational meaning in the administration of justice in various countries.).
94
In the context of international arbitrations, these contrasting notions of impartiality may lead to different
notions about the proper nature and extent of questions posed by arbitrators to witnesses. See In Matter of
Arbitration between Cole Publishing Co., Inc. v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., No. 93 Civ. 3641, 1994 WL 532898, *2
(S.D.N.Y. Sept.29, 1994) (ruling on challenge to arbitral award that alleged arbitrator bias was evidenced by
aggressive questioning of some witnesses and attempts to rehabilitate others, and that argued arbitrator acted more
28

example, rules of various systems governing ex parte communication between judges and parties
(or their counsel) are far from congruent. In China, it is not only permissible but also probable
that a judge will act as a mediator in the same case in which she presides as ultimate arbiter.95
The Chinese judge elicits information from the parties in whatfrom an American
perspectiveare ex parte conversations.96 The substance of these ex parte conversations may be
(but is not necessarily) communicated to other parties.97
Similarly, many Continental systems
permit ex parte communications and do not presuppose that all parties will always be in the
courtroom during fact-finding proceedings and rules expressly permit some contacts.98
In the United States, by contrast, fairness and impartiality are understood to entail
almost absolute restrictions against ex parte communications, except in certain rare procedural
contexts.99
It is highly unusual for an adjudicating judge to meet separately with the parties to
as an advocate and than an impartial moderator); see also DAMAKA, FACES OF JUSTICE , supra note 83, at 120
(noting that when a judge grills a witness testifying in favor of one disputant, the other may think that the official is
assisting his adversary).
95
See Jun Ge, Mediation, Arbitration and Litigation: Dispute Resolution in the Peoples Republic of
China, 15 U.C.L.A. PAC. BASIN L.J. 122, 127 (noting that the Chinese Civil Procedure Law requires that a judge to
conduct mediation if the parties do not object).
96
In China, courts are given an aggressive role in the fact-finding process, permitting them to find their
own fact and expert witnesses. See Roderick W. Macneil, Contract in China: Law, Practice, and Dispute
Resolution, 38 STAN . L. REV. 303, 327 (1986); James T. Peter, Med-Arb in International Arbitration, 8 A M. REV.
INT 'L A RB. 83, 107 (1997).
97
See Ge, supra note 95, at 127.
98
See, e.g., CODE OF CONDUCT--GERMANY, 8.3 (A lawyer may contact or submit documents or
exhibits to a judge without the knowledge of the lawyer(s) or the opposing client(s) in the case.)(cited in Terry,
Introduction to the European Communitys Ethics Code, supra note 72, at 18); see id. (noting that in many European
countries ex parte contact with the court on non-fundamental issues is not prohibited). The CCBE Explanatory
Memorandum states with regard to Rule 4.2, This provision applies the general principle that in adversarial
proceedings a lawyer must not attempt to take unfair advantage of his opponent, in particular by unilateral
communications with the judge. An exception however is made for any steps permitted under the relevant rules of
the court in question. Under the CCBE Code, therefore, the rules of the court govern the extent to which ex parte
communications are permitted.
99
The most common exceptions to the rule against ex parte communications are special proceedings for
extraordinary relief (such as Temporary Restraining Orders), in camera inspections, and similar unusual procedural
settings. See W OLFRAM, supra note 76, at 604-05.
29

extract confidential information about the case that might be relied on in making a decision, but
need not be disclosed to the opposing party. 100 Thus, while all systems require fairness in the
process, they differ in how they translate this ideal into regulations regarding communications
between parties and judges.
In an interesting twist, notwithstanding the stringent U.S. rules prohibiting ex
parte communications, domestic U.S. arbitration rules permit parties to communicate throughout
arbitral proceedings with their party-appointed arbitrators, even about crucial issues involving
strategy. 101
While Chinese and Continental systems tolerate some ex parte communication in
adjudication, the approach adopted by U.S. domestic arbitration extends well beyond that
level.102
Ex parte communication with arbitrators, because of its obvious potential to disrupt
proceedings and taint results, is one area that has attracted a great deal of attention to the lack of
ethical regulation for lawyers in international arbitration.103
100
In a modern trend, many federal U.S. judges have departed from this strictly disinterested posture and
adopted what Judith Resnik terms managerial judging. See Judith Resnik, Managerial Judges, 96 HARV. L. REV.
374, 390, 425- 427 (1982) (demonstrating and criticizing this trend).
101
Compare A LAN REDFERN & M ARTIN HUNTER, LAW AND PRACTICE OF INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL
A RBITRATION 225-26 (1991) (noting that it is not unusual for there to be discussions with just one of the parties in
respect of procedural matters such as availability for future hearings), and AAA/ABA Code of Ethics for
Arbitrators in Commercial Disputes, Canons III(B)(1)(permitting ex parte communications with any member of the
arbitral tribunal concerning such matters as setting the time and place of hearings or making other arrangements for
the conduct of the proceedings) and VII (permitting ex parte communications by party-appointed arbitrators as
long as general disclosure is made); with IBA Rules of Ethics, Rule 5.3 (prohibiting any unilateral communications
regarding the case). For extended discussion of these rules, see W. LAWRENCE CRAIG, W ILLIAM W. PARK & JAN
PAULSSON, INTERNATIONAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE A RBITRATION 13.07 (2d ed. 1990); M. Scott Donahey, The
Independence and Neutrality of Arbitrators, 9(4) J. INT L A RB. 31, 41-42 (1992).
102
See, e.g., Sunkist Soft Drinks, Inc. v. Sunkist Growers, Inc., 10 F.3d 753 (1993) (finding no misconduct
despite finding that party-arbitrator met with representatives and witnesses of appointing party before arbitration to
plan strategy); Lifecare International, Inc. v. CD Medical, Inc., 68 F.3d 429 (10th Cir. 1995). These cases involved
domestic U.S. arbitrations, which means that these objections did not arise because of conflicting cultural
perspectives on ex parte communication, but were challenges to the inherent fairness of proceedings when parties
are communicating with arbitrators.
103
See Vagts, International Legal Ethics, supra note 59, at 379 (using contrasting approaches to ex parte
communication with arbitrators as basis for panel discussion of hypothetical case involving European and American
lawyers in an arbitration in Geneva that was governed by Swiss law); Ambassador Malcolm Wilkey, The
30

3. Independence
Attorneys the world over have been assigned a duty to maintain professional
independence.
The universality of this obligation is demonstrated in some interesting historical
anomalies, such as the eighteenth-century Prussias failure, despite significant efforts, to absorb
advocates completely into the civil service machinery.104
Similarly, even while insisting on
communist market-control of most industries, including professional enterprises, the former

Soviet Union made unique allowances for attorneys to work as self-employed professionals in
cooperative colleges.105
Particularly in this area, the wrinkled nuances of language can be misleading.106
The texts of both the U.S. and European code of professional responsibility appear to be
similarly committed to the principle of attorney independence.107 However, the apparently
Practicalities of Cross-Cultural Arbitration, in CONFLICTING LEGAL CULTURES IN COMMERCIAL A RBITRATION:

OLD ISSUES AND NEW TRENDS 86 (Stefan N. Frommel & Barry A.K. Rider, eds., 1999) (describing differing
approaches to ex parte communication as a problem in international arbitration that must be overcome).
104
See Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Comparing Legal Professions Cross-Nationally: From a ProfessionsCentered to a State-Centered Approach, 1986 A.B.F. RES. J. 415, 445.
105
See Lawrence M. Friedman & Zigurds L. Zile, The Soviet Legal Profession: Recent Developments in
Law and Practice, 1964 W ISC. L. REV. 32-77. There are of course examples of authoritarian regimes, such as Nazi
Germany, under which attorneys were little more than tools of the government, actively involvedunder threat of
sanction or torturein helping the government to obtain convictions. See Wilkins, supra note 78, at 860 & nn.270.
106
As Professor Merryman explains:

[T]here is a very important sense in which a focus on rules is superficial because rules literally lie
on the surface of legal systems whose true dimensions are found elsewhere; misleading because
we are led to assume that if rules are made to resemble each other something significant by way of
rapprochement has been accomplished.
John H. Merryman, On the Convergence (and Divergence) of the Civil Law and the Common Law, in NEW
PERSPECTIVES FOR A COMMON LAW OF EUROPE 222-25 (Mauro Cappelletti ed., 1978); see also Ugo Mattei, Three
Patterns of Law: Taxonomy and Change in the Worlds Legal Systems, 45 A M. J. COMP . L. 5, 5 (1997)
(demonstrating how legal rules exist in the larger intellectual framework or legal taxonomy of the system); W.
Michael Reisman, Autonomy, Interdependence and Responsibility, 103 YALE L.J. 401, 403 (1993) (observing how
culturally defined perspectives make cross-cultural observation difficult).
107
Compare CCBE Code of Conduct Rule 2.1.1 (1998), reprinted in Terry, Introduction to the European
Communitys Legal Ethics, supra note 10, at 66, with Model Rules of Professional Conduct Rules 5.4 & 5.5 (1983)
and Preamble to the Model Rules of Professional Conduct.
31

similar linguistic commitment to attorney independence masks deeply divergent views about
what this duty requires.
In Europe, professional independence refers primarily to attorneys
relationships with their clients and other attorneys.108 The need for attorneys to be independent
from their clients is the justification for prohibitions against attorneys being employed as inhouse counsel109 and against accepting clients on a contingency fee basis.110
In an extreme
example, English barristers are, and (until recently) attorneys in some civil law countries were,
forbidden from forming law firms. The purpose of these bans was to prevent, in the event of a
disagreement about a clients interests, one partners independent professional judgment from
being stifled by having to accede to the judgment of another.111
Similarly, many civil law
countries used to prohibit lawyers from being employees of a law firm to prevent obligations
108
Four of the EC Member StatesItaly, France, Belgium and Luxembourgdo not even allow in-house
attorneys to be members of the bar. Sally R. Weaver, Client Confidences in Disputes Between In-House Attorneys
and Their Employer-Clients: Much Ado About Nothing -- Or Something?, 30 U.C. DAVIS L. REV. 483, 527 (1997).
This vision of in-house counsel also explains why in many European countries, there is no such concept as
corporate confidentiality. See Carol M. Langford, Reflections on Confidentiality, 2 J. INST . FOR STUDY LEGAL
ETHICS 183, 185 (1999); see also Terry, Introduction to the European Communitys Legal Ethics, supra note 10, at 1
& Appendix C.
109
110
From a European perspective, the percentage contingency fee is perceived as promoting excessive
litigation and reducing the attorneys independence and judgment. See Virginia G. Maurer, Robert E. Thomas &
Pamela A. DeBooth, Attorney Fee Arrangements: The U.S. and Western European Perspectives, 19 NW . J. INT 'L L.
& BUS. 272 (1999). While interesting for illustrative purposes, the contingency fees need not be addressed in a code
for international commercial arbitration. See supra note 32. Contingency fees are a phenomenon designed
primarily to help individuals with limited financial resources afford the costs of litigating predominantly in the tort
and employment contexts. See Dennis E. Curtis & Judith Resnik, Contingency Fees in Mass Torts: Access, Risk,
and the Provision of Legal Services When Layers of Lawyers Work for Individuals and Collectives of Clients, 47
DEPAUL L. REV. 425 (1998); Bradley L. Smith, Three Attorney Fee-Shifting Rules and Contingency Fees: Their
Impact on Settlement Incentives, 90 M ICH. L. REV. 2154 (1992). For this reason, as a practical matter, contingency
fees are often used to fund international commercial arbitrations, although the potential is there. See Ted Schneyer,
Legal Process Constraints on the Regulation of Lawyers Contingent Fee Contracts, 47 DEPAUL L. REV. 371 (1998)
(noting the increasing use of contingency fees in business litigation, including defense work).
111
See Ted Schneyer, Multidisciplinary Practice, Professional Regulation, and the Anti-Interference
Principle in Legal Ethics, 84 Minn. L. Rev. 1469, 1493 (2000). Similar regulations have been adopted in some civil
law countries, such as France. See id. (citing JOHN HENRY M ERRYMAN, THE CIVIL LAW TRADITION 113 (1969);
Daly, Dichotomy Between Standards and Rules, supra note 6, at 1149. As Professor Schneyer correctly points out,
the benefits from such extreme protection against interference with an attorneys professional judgment by other
lawyers is as likely to enhance as diminish the quality of a lawyers work. See Schneyer, Multidisciplinary
Practice, supra note 91, at 1494.
32

in the master-servant relationship from interfering with the attorneys professional judgment.112
While mandating that attorneys operate independent from their clients and other
attorneys, many civil law systems regard attorneys as quasi-governmental agents.
Sometimes,
this semi-official status is made explicit, such as in Germany where attorneys are considered part
of a concept called ffentliche Rechtspflege (administration of law)113 and in Greece the
Lawyers Code characterizes lawyers as unsalaried Public Servants.114
Advocates
collaborative role is also recognized and reinforced through a range of traditions, such as a host
of rights and privileges enjoyed by Greek attorneys, including special access to public service
or administrative offices at times closed to the lay public.115
This link to the government is
reinforced in many civil law countries by regulations that fix fee schedules, which prescribe
particular fees for particular services.
Micro-regulation of attorney fees by the government
implies that attorneys are performing state-coordinated functions, not personal services in a
predominantly private arrangement.116
Similarly, geographic restrictions in Germany and
France, which until recently admitted a lawyer only to a particular bar and a single court (for
example the trial court in the bar of Paris or the first appellate level in Hamburg),117 seemed
aimed at ensuring that courts have as regular a roster of attorneys as they do of judicial
personnel.
112
Even the requirement that civilian lawyers appear in court wearing a robe can be
113
See Rudolf du Mesnil de Rochemont, Federal Republic of Germany, in TRANSNATIONAL LEGAL

PRACTICE 127 (Dennis Campbell, ed., 1982).
114
See Costa K. Kyriakides & Anthony B. Hadjioannou, Greece in TRANSNATIONAL LEGAL PRACTICE 155
(Dennis Campbell, ed., 1987).
115
See id.
116
See id.
117
See Daly, Dichotomy Between Standards and Rules, supra note 6, at 1149. These geographic
restrictions have recently been lifted under compulsion from the European Union. See id.
33

understood as a symbolic reflection of their quasi-official role.118
In the United States, by contrast, independence generally connotes separation of
the legal profession from the government, which will be administering or, in the criminal
context, actively participating as an adversary in legal proceedings.
Professional self-regulation
is seen as a way to position attorneys to act as a bulwark against government tyranny and to
enable them to represent unpopular causes.119
Some individual ethical rules nod toward the
notion of attorney independence from client interests,120 but the larger structure of U.S. codes
contemplate that lawyers will have virtually total loyalty to the client and the clients
interests.121
Some sectors of the U.S. academic and judicial community urge more
circumspection by attorneys,122 but it would be implausible even for reform-minded individuals

to call for the same degree of independence envisioned for European attorneys.
Instead, the
118
See Olga Pina, Systems of Ethical Regulation: An International Comparison, 1 GEO. J. LEGAL ETHICS
797 (1988)(Note).
119
See M ODEL RULES, pmbl. at para.10 (stating that self-regulation helps maintain the legal professions
independence from government domination and is an important force in preserving government under law, for
abuse of authority is more readily challenged by a profession whose members are not dependent on government for
the right to practice.); but see Wilkins, supra note 78, at 853-63 (noting that in the U.S. there are multiple
connotations attributed to the concept of lawyer independence and its underlying purposes).
120
There are some U.S. ethical rules that do aim at encouraging some attorney independence from the
clients objectives, such as Rule 1.5(d), which prohibits contingency fees in criminal and domestic relations cases,
Rule 1.8(e), which prohibits lawyers from providing financial assistance in litigation, and Rule 1.8(j), which
prohibits an attorney from acquiring a proprietary interest in a cause of action or the subject matter of litigation.
121
See W OLFRAM, supra note 76, at 146 (describing an entrenched lawyerly conception is that the clientlawyer relationship is the embodiment of centuries of established and stable traditions). In the most strident
articulation, the lawyer is charged with carrying out the clients directions regardless of the immorality of the
clients objectives or means. See id. at 154. Although useful for illustrative purposes, these statements ignore
interests even in the U.S. of having lawyers exercise their professional independent judgment to assess both their
clients true (as opposed to merely articulated) interests and the public purposes underlying relevant legal
restrictions. Wilkins, Who Should Regulate Lawyers, supra note 78, at 862.
122
See William H. Simon, Ethical Discretion in Lawyering, 101 HARV. L. REV. 1083 1083-84 (1998)
(arguing that lawyers should independently assess their clients claims and the purposes underlying applicable legal
rules in order to determine what actions will likely produce a legally correct result). Some argue that the abdication
of professional independence from the client is a more modern event. See Robert W. Gordon, Independence of
Lawyers, 68 B.U. LAW REV. 1, 11-17 (1988)(arguing that the ideal of lawyers exercising independence from their
clients has real historical content); L. Ray Paterson, Legal Ethics and the Lawyers Duty of Loyalty, 29 EMORY L.J.
909, 10 (1980).
34

notion of attorney independence is a point of divergence so profound, one scholar has concluded
that the completing visions are irreconcilable.123
4. Loyalty
Loyalty is implicit in representation. This principle is self-evident and reaches
back into early sources of our social morality124 and the origins of advocacy. The occupation of
the advocate grew out of the practice of parties invoking the assistance of a friend, whose loyalty
was presumed, to bring special skills to bear on a clients cause.125 At its most basic level,
loyalty precludes an attorney from representing opposing sides in a single case.
Although
simultaneous representation of opposing clients126 is universally prohibited and has been since at
least the 11th Century,127 there is little agreement about appropriate attorney conduct in this area.
The U.S. takes the most stringent view of client loyalty.
U.S. codes regulate a
123
See Terry, Introduction to the European Communitys Legal Ethics, supra note 10, at 1 & Appendix C.
Even within the U.S. system, as Professor David Wilkins explains, No word in the lexicon of professionalism is
more commonly invokedand less commonly definedthan independence. See Wilkins, Who Should Regulate
Lawyers, supra note 78, at 853. Moreover, the ways in which American lawyers and regulators define attorney
independence is quite different from the independence problems facing lawyers in other countries, such as China.
See RANDALL PEERENBOOM, LAWYERS IN CHINA: OBSTACLES TO INDEPENDENCE AND THE DEFENSE OF RIGHTS
(Lawyers Committee on Human Rights, 1998).
124
M ATTHEW 6:24 (King James) (No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love
the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.) (quoted in Steven H. Goldberg, The Former
Clients Disqualification Gambit: A Bad Move in Pursuit of an Ethical Anomaly, 72 M INN. L. REV. (1987)).
125
See Roscoe Pound, The Lawyer from Antiquity to Modern Times 33 (1953); Damaka, Faces of Justice,
supra note 83, at 141; Mark M. Orkin, Legal Ethics: A Study of Professional Conduct 3 (1957); Jonathan Rose, The
Legal Profession in Medieval England: A History of Regulation 48 Syracuse L. Rev. 1 (1998).
126
It is difficult to say with regard to conflicts between current clients, whether the Model Rules or the
CCBE Code is more restrictive. In the U.S., attorneys are prohibited under the Model Rules from engaging in a
simultaneous representation if representation would be directly adverse or materially limited by the lawyers
other interests or responsibilities. Model Rule 1.7(b). The CCBE Code prohibits a lawyer from advising,
representing or acting on behalf of two of more clients if there is a conflict or a significant risk of a conflict
between their interests. While, comparing the language of these two provisions might be futile, empirical research
might allow comparison of the factual circumstances in which each rule is applied. For a description of how a lawin-action or social scientific approach can aid comparative analysis of seemingly identical rules, see Rogers,
Gullivers Troubled Travels, supra note 78, at 171.
127
See H. COHEN, HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BAR 233-34 (1929) (citing 1280 ordinance prohibiting lawyers
conflicts of interest).
35

range of activities that might give rise to a conflict of interest, such as accepting client gifts,128
engaging in business dealings with clients,129 and receiving payment for services from another
party. 130
European Codes appear to be silent on such matters, limiting their regulation of
conflicts of interest to situations involving dual representation.131 This omission is likely related
to the fact that much attorney regulation in Europe, particularly with regard to conflicts of
interest, remains informal.132
Another important area to consider in relation to attorneys duty of loyalty is the
degree to which attorneys are ethically required to defer their clients decisions.133
The U.S.
Model Rules, instruct attorneys to abide by a clients decisions concerning the objectives of
representation . . . and [to] consult with the client as to the means by which they are to be
pursued.134
Under this formula, U.S. attorneys are obliged, subject only to their right to
128
While not a model of clarity, Model Rule 1.8 views client gifts with extreme suspicion, which reflects
the long-standing skepticism in Anglo-American law of client-gifts to attorneys. See W OLFRAM, supra note 76, at
486.
129
The Disciplinary Rules prohibit lawyers from entering into business transactions in which they have
differing interests, unless the client consults after full disclosure. See id. at 480. Courts have expanded application
of the rule to apply even when the lawyer was not performing legal services for the client and to require that the
attorney advise the client to seek independent legal advice on the matter. See id. at 480 & n.80.
130
Disciplinary Rule 5-107(A) prohibits a lawyer from accepting compensation or other thing of value
from a person other than the client for representing a client unless the client gives informed consent. Id. at 443.
131
A particularly interesting example is in the contrasting U.S. and European regulation of contingency fee
arrangements. Both systems view contingency fees as a potential menace to ethical conduct, but for radically
different reasons. In the U.S., the ethical rules aim at ameliorating potential conflicts of interest between an attorney
and client that may arise when they have a contingency fee arrangement. See W OLFRAM, supra note 76, at 164. In
Europe contingency fees are almost completely prohibited, but not so much, as in the U.S. to protect clients against
the potential conflicts. European systems prohibit contingency fees to avoid an arrangement that might undermine
lawyers professional independence from their clients. See Maurer, Thomas & DeBooth, Attorney Fee
Arrangements, supra note 110 at 280.
132
See Daly, Dichotomy Between Standards and Rules, supra note 6, at 1150 (noting that in some
countries, professional ethics are handed down as an oral tradition, whose strictures address only the most obvious
conflicts of interest).
133
Another aspect of the duty of loyalty is the duty of professional competence. For reasons explained
elsewhere, see supra note 32, this pillar of professional ethics need not be addressed in a code of ethics for
international arbitration, but instead can be left to national or cross-border regulation.
134
Model Rule 1.2.
36

withdraw, to defer to client decisions regarding matters that substantially affect the clients rights
and are required also consult with clients on other important matters of strategy. 135
This
provision requires attorney loyalty not only to the clients cause, but also to the clients decisions
on important matters.
The CCBE Code,136 on the other hand, appears to emphasize that
attorneys protect clients interests more than that they abide by client instructions.137
This
difference is manifested in CCBE Rule 4.3, which requires that an attorney defend the interests
of his client honourably and in a way which [the lawyer] considers will be to the clients best
advantage under the law.138
This provision reflects an attorney prerogative over the clients
case, instead of an obligation to honor client decisions.139
In some countries, this attorney
prerogative extends so far that it permits substitution of counsel without either the knowledge or
consent of the client.140
Thus, while the duty of loyalty is universally acknowledged, the general
principle has not been consistently translated in national contexts.
135
This obligation to consult requires that attorneys explain matters well enough that clients can participate
intelligently in decisions about both the means and objective of representation. See W OLFRAM, supra note 76, at 165
(citing comment to Model Rule 1.4(a)).
136
The Council of the Bars and Law Societies of the European Community, commonly known as the
CCBE, has recently enacted the CCBE Code, which is a code of professional conduct that governs the conduct of
attorneys in the European Community. See Terry, Introduction to the European Communitys Legal Ethics, supra
note 10, at 15. Because the CCBE Code represents a compromise among predominantly civil law countries, and
because most Member States in the European Union have adopted it to govern cross-border practice, it provides an
important touchstone for any comparative discussion of ethics. For further discussion on the history and role of the
CCBE see infra notes 242-50, and accompanying text.
137
The CCBE Code does speak of the clients instructions, for example in Rule 3.1, where it states that a
lawyer can only handle a case for a client on his instruction. In context, however, the term instruction appears
to be idiomatic for retention, and not a reference to interim decision-making by the client. The title of the subsection, for example, is Acceptance and Termination of Instructions and appears to use matters and
instructions interchangeably when discussing requirements that an attorney have time and be competent before
undertaking representation of a client.
138
See Terry, Introduction to the European Communitys Legal Ethics, supra note 10, at 36 (emphasis
added).
139
140
See id. at 30 & n.114 (citing Austrian legal sources and anecdotal evidence from an Austrian attorney).
See id. at 47.
37

5. Confidentiality
Concomitant with the obligation of loyalty, it is universally acknowledged that
lawyers are obliged to preserve client confidences.141 The purpose of confidentiality obligations
is to ensure privacy for communications between lawyers and clients, generating mutual trust
and maximum disclosure, which will, in turn, enhance representation.142 Once again, while there
is general agreement about the goals of the duty of confidentiality, legal systems take rather
different views about how extensive an attorneys obligations must be to fulfill these goals.
In
civil law countries (except France), the concept of professional secret protects only
information communicated by a client to an attorney143 and attorneys are not obliged to maintain
as secret information they communicate to clients,144 or communications they had with other
attorneys.145
By contrast, the common law notion of confidentiality, closely tied to the attorney-
client privilege, is much broader and incorporates both communications from an attorney to a
client and from a client to an attorney.146 Under Islamic law, the principles of sharia arguably
impose an even higher duty of confidentiality, requiring protection not only of communications
141
See Geoffrey C. Hazard, Jr., An Historical Perspective on the Attorney-Client Privilege, 66 CAL. L.
REV. 1061 (1978).
142
In the Anglo-Saxon legal tradition, this justification dates back to Wigmore. See Alison M. Hill, A
Problem Of Privilege: In-House Counsel And The Attorney-Client Privilege In The United States And The European
Community, 27 CASE W.J. INT L LAW 145, 172 (1995).
143
One exception, noted above, is that in-house counsel cannot be members of the bar and communications
with them are not subject to professional confidentiality obligations. See Terry, Introduction to the European
Communitys Legal Ethics, supra note 10, at 37; see LINDA S. SPEDDING, TRANSNATIONAL LEGAL PRACTICE IN THE
EEC AND THE UNITED STATES 131 (1987).
144
LINDA S. SPEDDING, TRANSNATIONAL LEGAL PRACTICE IN THE EEC AND THE UNITED STATES 127-28.
The civil law professional secret derives from a penal law that prohibits disclosing the secrets of another. See
id. at 127.
145
See id. at 128.
146
See W OLFRAM, supra note 76, at 258-64. Notably, a few U.S. jurisdictions have adopted a rule similar
to the civil laws, refusing to apply confidentiality protections to communications from a lawyer to a client.
38

between attorneys and clients but also protection of all information relating to representation.147
Thus, the term confidentiality does not come with a readily definable content.
Systems also diverge in how they demarcate the obligation of confidentiality
when client wrongdoing or potential wrongdoing is involved.
Even among the ethical codes of
the fifty United States, there is significant disagreement about the extent of confidentiality
obligations when a client has committed or is planning to commit criminal wrongdoing.148 At an
international level, the level of disagreement in this area has been described as the most
significant threat to orderly transnational legal practice.149
After years of studying the
differences between national ethical codes, the Consultative Committee of Council of the Bars
and Law Societies of the European Community, which drafted the predecessor code to the CCBE
Code,150 summarized the problem as follows:
While there can be no doubt as to the essential principle of the duty
of confidentiality, the Consultative Committee has found that there
are significant differences between member countries as to the
precise extent of lawyers rights and duties. These differences are
sometimes very subtle in character especially concerning the rights
147
M. McCary, Bridging Ethical Borders: International Legal Ethics with an Islamic Perspective, TEX.
INT L L.J. 289, 313-14 (2000). In practice, these heightened confidentiality requirements may not be any different
from U.S. loyalty obligations.
148
Take, for example, a lawyer who is licensed in both New Jersey and the District of Columbia and who
discovers that a client has committed or intends to commit fraud. See Malini Majumdar, Ethics in the International
Arena: The Need for Clarification, 8 GEO. J. LEGAL ETHICS 439, 440 (1995). Under the rules of the District of
Columbia, our hapless attorney is required to remain silent, while the rules of New Jersey compel her to reveal the
clients fraud. Rule 8.5 attempts to resolve the problem with a conflicts of law rule. Ultimately, however, Rule 8.5
answer is unsatisfactory and has prompted calls for national ethical rules that will apply in all jurisdictions. See
Mary C. Daly, Resolving Ethical Conflicts in Multinational PracticeIs Model Rule 8.5 the Answer, an Answer or
No Answer at All?, 36 S. TEX. L. REV. 715, 720 (1995).
149
See CAYTAS, TRANSNATIONAL LEGAL PRACTICE , supra note 4, at 3 (1992) (surmising that
transnational practice is most threatened by conflicting mandatory norms requesting or prohibiting with equal
authority and determination [the] disclosure of client-related and therefore presumably confidential information).
150
For a discussion of the history of the CCBE Code and its precursors, see infra notes 301-303, and
accompanying text.
39

and duties of a lawyer vis--vis his client, the courts in criminal
cases and administrative authorities in fiscal cases.151
Over twenty years later, it appears that European regulators have still not made any real progress
toward resolving the profound and difficult differences among systems in this area. The CCBE
Code neglects to even acknowledge that there is a tension between obligations to disclose
wrongdoing and obligations to maintain client secrets, let alone acknowledge that systems
resolve the tension differently.152
Another area of regulatory conflict is in the extent of post-representation
protection for client confidences.
In the U.S., lawyers are disqualified from accepting
employment of a new client whenever the interests of the new client and an existing or former
client are materially adverse and the matters involved are substantially related.153
These
blanket, objectively defined categories leave little discretion to attorneys in evaluating the
relative severity of a potential conflict. Instead, that discretion is placed in the hands of clients,
who can waive a potential conflict through written consent.154 In Europe, the realm of protection
for clients is more circumscribed and the discretion to evaluate conflicts is apparently left to the
lawyer.
Under the CCBE Code, an attorney is forbidden from accepting a new client only if
there would be a risk of breach of the former clients confidences or if the lawyers knowledge
of the former client would give an unfair advantage to the new client.155
This formulation
151
See The Declaration of on the Principles of Professional Conduct of the Bars and Law Societies of the
European Community (1977).
152
See Terry, Introduction to the European Communitys Legal Ethics, supra note 10, at 28-29 (noting that
the CCBE Code imposes seemingly inconsistent provisions, which suggest without expressly acknowledging that,
although phrased in absolute terms, the obligation of confidentiality may have limits).
153
See W OLFRAM, supra note 76, at 366-67.

See id.
155
See Terry, Introduction to the European Communitys Legal Ethics, supra note 10, at 1 & Appendix C.
The strictures of U.S. rules may also more demanding with respect to vicarious conflicts. Under the Model Rules, a
lawyer in a firm is barred from representing a new client with conflicting interests of a former client of another
154
40

leaves substantial discretion to the attorney to determine whether confidences can be maintained
and or whether an advantage to a new client would be unfair.156 It is easy to imagine that a
European attorney could decide that even if two matters are related and adverse, the risk of a
breach of confidence and unfairness is low. This willingness to vest attorneys with discretion on
delicate issues involving their own conflicts may reflect that, prior to the adoption of the CCBE
Code, in Europe conflicts were considered a matter of an attorneys personal relationship with
the client, as opposed to professional ethics.157
In addition to the duty to maintain client confidences, many systems impose on
attorneys other confidentiality requirements.
In continental systems such as the Italian, French
and Portuguese systems, communications between lawyers, including opposing counsel, can be
regarded as confidential.158
Upon receiving a communication marked confidential, or in
French sous la foi du Palais, the receiving attorney must maintain the communication as
confidential and is even prohibited from sending copies to her own client.159 In the U.S., as well
as other common law systems such as Ireland and the United Kingdom, such an obligation to
treat as confidential communications from opposing counsel could conflict with an attorneys
attorney in the firm, even if the former representation by another attorney occurred at another firm. See Schneyer,
The Regulation of Lawyers, supra note 110, at 45.
156
See id. at 55; Mary C. Daly, The Ethical Implications of the Globalization of the Legal Profession: A
Challenge to the Teaching of Professional Responsibility in the Twenty-First Century, 21 FORDHAM INT L L. J.
1239, 1290 (1998). Notably, the CCBE Code does not permit party consent to potential conflicts, which in the
United States is an important source of party autonomy in choosing to assume certain risks. See Terry, Introduction
to the European Communitys Legal Ethics, supra note 10, at 31.
157
See Justin Castillo, International Law Practice in the 1990s: Issues of Law, Policy, and Professional
Ethics, 86 A M. SOCY INT L L. PROC. 272, 283 (1992). European lawyers may have added incentives to interpret
these restrictions narrowly because they do not have the opportunity to seek client waiver and their decision cannot
be challenged by a motion for disqualification, as is the American practice.
158
See Terry, Introduction to the European Communitys Legal Ethics, supra note 10, Appendix C, at 85.
In Ireland and the United Kingdom, ethical codes refer only to an attorneys obligation to keep a client informed.
See id.
41

obligations to keep clients informed.160
In sum, the area of attorneys duty of confidentiality
once again demonstrates that the differences between and among national ethical regimes are
vast.
Resolving these differences cannot easily be accomplished on an ad hoc basis by
individual attorneys and arbitrators.161
C. Divergent Ethical Obligations in International Arbitration Proceedings

Knowing the divergences between national ethical obligations, sketched in
Section A, it is easy to understand that they cannot peacefully co-exist in a single arbitral
proceeding.
They will be forced into reckless collisions because, in the absence of a code of
ethics that applies in international arbitration, attorneys have no justification for disregarding the
ethical strictures of their home jurisdictions.
Adding to the conflicting ethical obligations, the
lack of guidance and the absence of any mechanisms for enforcement create other obstacles for
orderly resolution of disputes.
This Section is organized around the three main goals of
international arbitrationneutrality, effectiveness and party autonomyand describes how

divergent ethical assumptions and the absence of ethical regulation can threaten to destabilize
these goals.
1. Neutrality
The primary accomplishment of international commercial arbitration is that it
159
See id.
For a discussion of U.S. attorneys obligation to keep clients informed, see supra notes 134-138, and
accompanying text.
160
161
Charles N. Brower, a former judge on the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal, has identified in the
context of evidentiary standards, the perils that await when arbitrators apply complex rules for arbitral proceedings
in an ad hoc fashion. In Browers experience, the requirements imposed by arbitrators are often not clearly
communicated to the parties (perhaps because they are evolving during the proceedings) and parties unwittingly
42

ensures neutrality.
Most obviously and most importantly, international arbitration allows parties
to avoid submitting their disputes to the national courts of their adversaries.162
The primary
reason why parties include an arbitration agreement in their contract is to insulate themselves
from potentially biased national courts of their opponents.163
Another way international commercial arbitration assures neutrality is by blunting
assume that their evidentiary submissions are sufficient. See Charles N. Brower, Evidence Before International
Tribunals: The Need for Some Standard Rules, 28 INT L LAW 47, 58 (1994).
162
It is generally presumed that judges (or juries) will be more sympathetic to the interests of parties who
share their nationality and may in fact be hostile toward or biased against foreign parties. It is often mistakenly
supposed that the only significant threat of bias comes from the courts of developing nations, which may lack a
sense of judicial independence or may be subject to corruption. In fact, bias against foreign defendants is alive and
well in virtually all countries, including the United States. This potential for bias was recognized during the drafting
of the Constitution, and lead to crafting of the diversity clause which extends the jurisdiction of presumably lessbiased federal courts to matters between American citizens and foreign nationals. See The Federalist No. 80
(Hamilton); 3 JONATHAN ELLIOT , THE DEBATES IN THE SEVERAL STATE CONVENTIONS, ON THE A DOPTION OF THE
FEDERAL CONSTITUTION 583 (Philadelphia, Lippincott 2d ed. 1876) (Madison). Notwithstanding this effort by the
Founders, recurring surges of nativism and xenophobia have plagued this nations history and suggest the potential
for unfair treatment of noncitizens in the courts. Bias against noncitizens unfortunately remains to this day. Kevin
R. Johnson, Why Alienage Jurisdiction? Historical Foundations and Modern Justifications for Federal Jurisdiction
Over Disputes Involving Non-Citizens, 21 YALE J. INT 'L L. 1, 35-43 (1996); but see Kevin M. Clermont & Theodore
Eisenberg, Xenophilia in American Courts, 109 HARV. L. REV. 1120 (1996) (concluding, based on analysis of data
of federal court civil litigation involving foreign parties, that foreign parties fare better than their domestic
counterparts).
163
See, e.g., Gerald Aksen, Arbitration and Other Means of Dispute Settlement, in INTERNATIONAL JOINT
VENTURES: A PRACTICAL A PPROACH TO W ORKING WITH FOREIGN INVESTORS IN THE U.S. AND A BROAD 287, 287
(David N. Goldsweig & Roger H. Cummings eds., 2d ed. 1990) (citing distrust of opponents national courts as
primary motivation for resorting to arbitration). International arbitration has been extolled for a host of reasons in
addition to its neutrality and effectiveness, including increased cost-savings, speed, and confidentiality. See James
T. Peter, Med-Arb in International Arbitration, 8 A M. REV. INT 'L A RB. 83 (1997). Experience has taught, however,
that international arbitration is often unable to satisfy expectations of cost savings and increased efficiency. See
John R. Allison, Arbitration of Private Antitrust Claims in International Trade: A World Study in the Subornation
of National Interests to the Demands of a World Market, 18 N.Y.U.J. INT L L. & POL. 361 378 (1986); see also
William W Park, National Law and Commercial Justice: Safeguarding Procedural Integrity in International
Arbitration, 63 Tul. L. Rev. 647, 659 (1989) (In the real world, business managers and their lawyers often
compromise on a governing law without a great deal of research on how the chosen legal system will affect the
outcome in the spectrum of possible controversies.). A recent survey of participants in international arbitration
bears this hypothesis out. Of those surveyed, 72% identified neutrality and 64% identified enforceability as
highly relevant to their decision to arbitrate. See CHRISTIAN BHRING-UHLE, A RBITRATION AND M EDIATION IN
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS 45 (1996) (cited in Drahozal, Commercial Norms, supra note 9, at 95 n.83) (2000)).
Other popular reasons were expertise available through arbitration (37%) and the unavailability of appeal (37%).
See id.
43

what parties perceive to be the sharp edges of foreign national procedural arrangements.164
Parties from different cultures and legal traditions often have radically different conceptions
about what a legal dispute is, what the resolution process should entail, and what the role of
lawyers should be in that context.165 For example, Continental parties are jarred by the prospect
of being compelled by a U.S. court to give to an opposing party documents containing secret
research and development information, and being subjected to the seeming barbarism of crossexamination.166
Meanwhile, U.S. parties are dismayed that under most Continental rules they
cannot call on an opposing party to testify, even about basic matters such as the parties intent at
the time of contracting.167 U.S. parties also find it remarkable that they cannot ultimately control
which witnesses will testify in support of their case, they cannot conduct private investigations
into facts of the case,
168
and they are powerless to prevent all forms of inadmissible hearsay
164
See William W. Park, Control Mechanisms in the Development of a Modern Lex Mercatoria, in LEX
M ERCATORIA AND A RBITRATION (Thomas E. Carbonneau, ed., 1998); see also Vagts & Park, supra note 1, at 621
(International commercial arbitration provides a neutral playing field on which transnational economic law is
enforced.).
165
See William W. Park, National Law and Commercial Justice: Safeguarding Procedural Integrity in
International Arbitration, 63 TUL. L. REV. 647, 661 (1989) (Wide variations exist in concepts of fairness. Like the
notion of justice, fairness is usually encrusted with emotional and philosophic overtones.); Thomas E. Carbonneau,
The Remaking of Arbitration: Design and Destiny 27, in LEX M ERCATORIA AND A RBITRATION (Thomas E.
Carbonneau, ed., 1998) (Contrastive procedural traditions provide for different concepts of justice and, as a result
are difficult to reconcile. Arbitrations legitimacy as a mechanism for transnational adjudication depends upon how
fair the governing procedures are or are perceived to be by the constituent parties.).
166
See Patrick Thieffry, European Integration in Transnational Litigation, 13 B.C. INT L & COMP . L. REV.
339, 356 -57 (1990) (U.S.-style procedural rules, the absence of which U.S. litigants tend to criticize in European
courts, are precisely those considered to be the most outrageous by European litigants in U.S. courts.).
167
Under the German code, for example, a party is not under an unqualified obligation to answer
interrogatories and may not be compelled to testify. See K. Riechenberg, The Recognition of Foreign Privileges in
United States Discovery Proceedings, 9 N.W.J. INT 'L L. & BUS. 80, 88 (1988). In most continental jurisdictions, a
litigants statement is not a recognized means of proof of his allegations. In others, judges are expected to order
formal interrogations of a party only as a means of last resort[.] Mirjan Damaka, The Uncertain Fate of
Evidentiary Transplants: Anglo-American and Continental Experiments, 45 A M. J. COMP . L. 839, 842 (1997).
Similarly, under Islamic law, an interested partys testimony carries no weight. See Charles N. Brower, Evidence
Before International Tribunals: The Need for Some Standard Rules, 28 INT L LAW 47, 50 (1994).
168
See John H. Langbein, The German Advantage in Civil Procedure, 52 U. CHI. L. REV. 823 (1985).
44

from being relied on by a Continental judge.169
Modern international arbitration practice has tempered these most steely aspects
of national practice and created a forum in which all participants can feel relatively
comfortable.170 Most often, direct examination is submitted by the parties in the form of witness
statements or declarations.171
This practice gives parties substantial control over what
testimonial evidence will be presented in support of their case.
Cross-examination of witnesses
who submit statements is generally accepted as a legitimate fact-finding technique, but it is

practiced with less vigor than in U.S. courtrooms.172
During cross-examinations, arbitrators
169
For reasons that will become clear later, interposing any objections in a civil law proceeding is regarded
as a direct challenge to the judges authority and competence. See M IRJAN DAMAKA, EVIDENCE LAW A DRIFT 86
(1997). While categories such as hearsay do not preclude the admission of evidence, judges in civil law
jurisdictions accord less weight to second-hand and indirect evidence that might be excluded in the U.S. system. See
Konstantinos D. Kerameus, A Civilian Lawyer Looks at Common Law Procedure, 47 LA. L. REV. 493, 500 (1987)
(tracing the development of hearsay and other exclusionary rules to the development of the jury system).
170
See Serge Lazareff, International Arbitration: Towards a Common Procedural Approach, in

CONFLICTING LEGAL CULTURES IN COMMERCIAL A RBITRATION: OLD ISSUES AND NEW TRENDS 31 (Stefan N.
Frommel & Barry A.K. Rider, eds. 1999) (noting an increasing awareness among both arbitrators and practitioners
of an emerging harmonised procedural pattern in international arbitration); Alan Scott Rau & Edward F.
Sherman, Tradition and Innovation in International Arbitration Procedure, 30 TEX. INT L L.J. 89, 89 & n.4 (1995);
Marianne Roth, False Testimony in International Commercial Arbitration: A Comparative View, 7 N.Y. INT 'L L.
REV. 147, 151 (1994); Andreas F. Lowenfeld, The Two-Way Mirror: International Arbitration as Comparative
Procedure, in 1985 M ICHIGAN YEARBOOK OF INTERNATIONAL LEGAL STUDIES 163 (1985).
171
See Berthold Goldman, The Application of Law; General Principles of LawThe Lex Mercatoria in
CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMS IN INTERNATIONAL A RBITRATION 124 (Julian D.M. Lew, ed., 1986). See Rau &
Sherman, supra note 170, at 118 ([I]nternational arbitration hearings are often something of an amalgam of the two
traditions, with witness testimony frequently presented in affidavit or summary-statement form, and, when live
testimony is presented, with limited cross-examination.) (footnotes omitted); Christian Borris, The Reconciliation
of Conflicts Between Common Law and Civil Law Principles in the Arbitration Process 1, 13-14 in CONFLICTING
LEGAL CULTURES IN COMMERCIAL A RBITRATION: OLD ISSUES AND NEW TRENDS (Stefan N. Frommel and Barry
A.K. Rider eds. 1999).
172
See Andreas F. Lowenfeld, Introduction: The Elements Of Procedure: Are They Separately Portable?,
45 A M. J. COMP . L. 649, 654 (1997) (By now, cross-examination by counsel is pretty well accepted in international
arbitrations, and for the most part the continental lawyers have learned how to do it. Moreover, and almost as
important, arbitrators have learned how to administer cross-examination.); Julian D.M. Lew & Laurence Shore,
International Commercial Arbitration: Harmonizing Cultural Differences, 54 DISP . RES. J. 33, 34 (1999) (noting
that when cross-examination is permitted in arbitrations, attorneys are encouraged, through strict time limits, to
focus their questioning on the most important issues). Even with these accommodations, lawyers from different
countries approach cross-examination with different purposes and techniques. English Barristers are accustomed
to conducting a painstaking cross-examination of the witnesses statement, and American attorneys cross-examine
on materials from depositions and direct testimony in an effort to undermine the witnesss credibility. See id. at 34.
45

routinely interject questions of witnesses, but more for the purpose of clarifying and filling in
gaps in testimony, than developing the initial content of testimony.173 Limited discovery is often
allowed, including depositions,174 and evidentiary objections are making an appearance in many
arbitrations.175
These hybridized procedural practices have recently been synthesized into
specific rules by the International Bar Association, which can be incorporated into the parties
contract.176
Although procedures in international arbitration have evolved into hybridized
neutrality, ethical norms are not as easy to hybridize.
Even when attorneys are compelled to
abandon the procedural practices of their national courts, the gravitational pull, if not the legal
By contrast, Continental practitioners focus more on questions that might elicit new information, than on raising
questions about the witnesss credibility. See id.
173
See Rau & Sherman, supra note 170, at 96 & n.47 (citing DAVID RENE, A RBITRATION IN
INTERNATIONAL TRADE 296 (1985)); Bernardo M. Cremades, Overcoming the Clash of Legal Cultures: The Role of
Interactive Arbitration, in CONFLICTING LEGAL CULTURES IN COMMERCIAL A RBITRATION: OLD ISSUES AND NEW
TRENDS 161 (Stefan N. Frommel & Barry A.K. Rider, eds., 1999); Ambassador Malcolm Wilkey, The Practicalities
of Cross-Cultural Arbitration, in CONFLICTING LEGAL CULTURES IN COMMERCIAL A RBITRATION: OLD ISSUES AND
NEW TRENDS 81 (Stefan N. Frommel & Barry A.K. Rider, eds., 1999).
174
Some countries have national laws that limit the nature of and manner in which discovery can be
pursued in arbitrations. For example, Article 184 of the Swiss law on Private International Law requires that the
arbitral tribunal itself take evidence. Bundesgesetz uber das Internationale Privatrecht vom 18 Dezember 1987,
1988 Bundesblatt [BB] I 5 (Switz.). Similarly, Section 1036 of the German Civil Procedure Code forbids arbitrators
from ordering parties to disclose information and requires that they seek national court assistance in conducting
discovery. See Section 1036 Zivilprozebordnung (F.R.G.). Foreign law in this note derives from cites and
translations in Charles S. Baldwin, IV, Protecting Confidential and Proprietary Commercial Information in
International Arbitration, 31 TEX. INT L L.J. 451 (1996).
175
See id. at 103. In arbitration, like in bench or judge trials, evidentiary objections are less important
because there is no jury. See A NDREAS BUCHER & PIERRE YVES TSCHIANZ, INTERNATIONAL A RBITRATION IN
SWITZERLAND 92 (1989) (arguing that rules of evidence lose most of their meaning and importance in arbitration).
176
See International Bar Associations Supplemental Rules Governing the Presentation and Reception of
Evidence in International Commercial Arbitration, http://www.asser.nl/ica/iba.htm. The IBA Rules are part of a
larger debate about the future of arbitration. Some believe that there will be, or should be, more specified rules of
procedure and evidence, while others urge commitment to flexibility. See Howard M. Holzman Balancing the Need
for Certainty and Flexibility in International Arbitration Procedures at 13, in INTERNATIONAL A RBITRATION IN THE
21ST CENTURY: TOWARDS JUDICIALIZATION AND UNIFORMITY (Richard B. Lillich & Charles N. Brower, eds.
1993). Notably, the move toward culturally harmonized procedural rules in arbitration mirrors a similar effort in
domestic litigation. Geoffrey Hazard, along with a host of expert advisors, head up the ALI project to develop
transnational rules of civil procedure that national courts could use when adjudicating international disputes. See
46

obligations, of their national ethical norms remain.177
The ensuing problems are obvious. How
can a proceeding be fair if only one party is preparing witnesses while the other is studiously
avoiding such contact?
How can a proceeding be neutral if one party is meeting with its
appointed arbitrator to strategize, while the other is not? How can a proceeding be just if one
attorney is required to disclose information that the opposing counsel is obliged to maintain as
secret? It is something of a mystery that catastrophe has not come in answer to these and other
questions.
The least likely explanation for the apparent quietude is that these questions do
not affect international arbitration.178
More likely, the visibility of clashes between conflicting
national ethical norms is obscured by a range of factors, most significantly the fact the arbitration
process is private.
Most arbitral awards are complied with voluntarily179 and reports on these
cases are not generally available.180
Of those cases that do end up being contested at the
ALI/UNIDROIT PRINCIPLES AND RULES OF TRANSNATIONAL CIVIL PROCEDURE , Discussion Draft No. 2 (April 12,
2001).
177
See supra note 69 (describing the ambiguities and disagreement over whether national ethical norms
apply or apply with equal force in arbitration).
178
One indicator of the difficulty in verifying the existence of ethical conflicts is that several experts,
including former presidents of the ICC Court of Arbitration, have confirmed that the problem sometimes arises
that one party is communicating with the party arbitrator, while the other is not. See Wilkey, The Practicalities of
Cross-Cultural Arbitration, supra note 103, at 86. Notwithstanding these personal admissions, a search of all U.S.
case law revealed no cases in which this problem has been presented as a basis for challenging an international
award.
179
For example, as of 1984, the ICC boasted a 90% voluntary compliance rate. See Thomas E.
Carbonneau, Rendering Arbitral Awards with Reasons: The Elaboration of a Common Law of International
Transactions, 23 COLUM.J. TRANSNAT L L. 579, 606 (1985). This statistic may have already fallen victim to the
new culture of more international arbitration system, in which informal agreement is less likely to effectively bind
the parties.
180
Legal research regarding individual arbitration cases is limited because arbitration awards are rarely
rendered with reasoned opinions, let alone published. See id. Some limited publication is done by the ICC with the
parties names expunged and court review of arbitral awards provides a glimpse at a subset of awards. An accurate
assessment of the impact of conflicting national ethical norms in international arbitration would require
investigation of not only those cases that reach the award stage, however, but also the significant percentage of
arbitral cases that settle before award. Indeed, discovering midway through proceedings that one party has been
47

enforcement stage, ethical misconduct cannot really be raised unless it was so disruptive of the
proceedings that it could be characterized under one of the narrow exceptions permitted by the
New York Convention.181
Even if these limitations on reporting do not completely obscure
ethical conflicts in arbitration proceedings, they slow down their revelation.
The problem of
ethical conflicts is relatively new, caused by the recent expansion in the ranks of participants in
international arbitration. The absence of significant complaints may simply reflect the lag time
while reporting catches up with the current problems.
It is also probable that ethics collide under the surface of proceedings, hidden
from plain view, even that of the participants.
For example, an attorney can legitimately
withhold from discovery information that is otherwise relevant if that information is

confidential.
But what happens when the parties have different understandings of what
confidential means? One party may be producing materials that the other party is maintaining
as confidential.182
In an adversarial proceeding, an American party asserting a more expansive
definition of confidentiality is unlikely to inquire whether production by the other side of

apparently confidential materials is inadvertent or intentional.
Moreover, the European party is
unlikely to detect the American partys expansive approach to withholding, and is even less
likely to detect inappropriate withholding, because the European party is not accustomed to
communicating throughout with its party arbitrator may inject enough uncertainty about enforceability and the
possibility of retrial to produce higher rates of settlement than would occur in untainted proceedings.
181
For a description of the grounds under the New York Convention for setting aside or refusing to enforce
an arbitral award, see infra notes 203-205, and accompanying text.
182
This problem demonstrates the intersection of ethical rules with evidence rules. The interconnectedness
of rules of civil procedure, evidence and ethics suggest that the enactment of ethical norms for international
arbitration must coincide with the means by which procedural and evidentiary rules are made applicable in arbitral
proceedings. See infra Section II.D.1.
48

discovery.183
Another major factor masking the full impact of conflicting ethical norms in
arbitration may be clandestine techniques by which arbitrators presumably regulate proceedings
before them.
In the absence of articulated norms and express enforcement mechanisms,
arbitrators likely assess the conduct of attorneys based on privateand untestedstandards

informed by the arbitrators legal and cultural backgrounds.
For example, a Continental
arbitrator faced with creative arguments by an American attorney may conclude that the
American attorney is inherently untrustworthy and may discount or disregard arguments by that
attorney. 184
Meanwhile, an American arbitrator may perceive restrained arguments from
Continental counsel as either poor lawyering or a fundamental lack of conviction about the
strength of the clients case.
Similarly, an arbitrator from a civil law system may discount
testimony by a witness, or discredit a partys case entirely, upon discovering that the witness
discussed the case with counsel prior to testifying.185
An American arbitrator may have the
opposite reaction if a witness flounders during routine cross-examination questions for which an
American the witness would normally have been primed.
Even if they remain unspoken, such perceptions of apparent misconduct (or
ineptitude) inevitably affect arbitrators decisions on the merits, computations of damage awards,
183
Because of similar differences in the parties expectations and assumptions, one partys pre-testimonial
communicaiton with witnesses or on-going ex parte communication with a party arbitrator may go undetected. As
these examples demonstrate, ethical rules are intertwined with and will benefit from development of more fixed
rules for procedure and evidence.
184
This example has been identified as a recurring problem in international tribunals. See Vagts, The
International Legal Profession, supra note 8, at 260.
185
German judges are given to marked and explicit doubts about the reliability of the testimony of
witnesses who previously have discussed the case with counsel. Kaplan, von Mehren, & Schaefer, Phases of
German Civil Procedure I, 71 HARV. L. REV. 1193, 1201 (1958).
49

and assessments of costs and fees.186 Under older notions of international arbitration as a sort of
rough justice,187 these informal constraints may have been sufficient to instill a sense of justice
in the proceedings, but they are inconsistent with international arbitrations modern role as a
transnational adjudicatory system.
These informal sanctions violate the most fundamental
notions of procedural fairness by imposing punishments for violations of unknown rules and
without any opportunity to be heard.188
Such reactions to perceived attorney misconduct may
also be sanctioning an innocent party. Clients pay substantive awards and costs and fees, but the
misconduct may belong wholly to the attorney.
2. Effectiveness
Another essential goal of international commercial arbitration is effectiveness,189
which, like the concept of neutrality, has distinctive connotations in the context of international
arbitration. At a procedural level, effectiveness refers to the ability of parties to determine where
186
Most arbitral rules permit arbitrators to award or apportion costs and fees between the parties based on
the relative merit of their cases or their conduct during arbitral proceedings. See John Yukio Gotanda, Awarding
Costs and Attorneys Fees in International Commercial Arbitrations, 21 M ICH. J. INT 'L L. 1, 1 (1999). For further
discussion of arbitrator power to award costs and fees, see infra note 472, and accompanying text.
187
See Stephen J. Ware, Default Rules from Mandatory Rules: Privatizing Law through Arbitration, 83
M INN. L. REV. 703, 745 (1999) [hereinafter Ware, Privatizing Law through Arbitration] (There is a long
tradition of arbitrators deciding on the sole basis of their sense of justice, rather than any set of rules.); see also
Thomas E. Carbonneau, Arbitral Adjudication: A Comparative Assessment of Its Remedial and Substantive Status
in Transnational Commerce, 19 TEX. INT L L.J. 33, 39 (1984).
188
One scholar, in proposing solutions to the clash of legal cultures in international arbitration, has
suggested that the problem could be solved by heightened sensitivity on the part of arbitrators and increased
communication during the process. See Bernardo M. Cremades, Overcoming the Clash of Legal Cultures: The Role
of Interactive Arbitration, in CONFLICTING LEGAL CULTURES IN COMMERCIAL A RBITRATION: OLD ISSUES AND NEW
TRENDS 161 (Stefan N. Frommel & Barry A.K. Rider, eds., 1999) (suggesting that the arbitral tribunal must know
how to distinguish different cultural origins in the evaluation of their respective testimonies). Even if, under the
best circumstances, arbitrator sensitivity could ameliorate bias in the decision-making process, but it cannot obviate
the inequity of having parties abide by differing rules during the presentation of evidence.
189
See THOMAS E. CARBONNEAU, ALTERNAT IVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION: MELTING THE LANCES AND
DISMOUNTING THE STEEDS 1-22 (1989) (discussing the pressures created by globalization and impracticability of
traditional justice to respond to those needs).
50

their dispute will be resolved and to ensure that the final award will be enforceable.190 Without
an arbitration clause, even the simplest international transaction can give rise to competing
litigation in two or more different countries.
Forum selection clauses191 and abstention
doctrines192 may reduce the likelihood that multiple suits will be brought all the way to
judgment, but the range of possible venues creates tremendous uncertainty about where the
dispute will ultimately be resolved.
In addition to reducing uncertainty, arbitration also solves many complications
that arise when an international dispute is adjudicated in national courts. Add a foreign party to
an otherwise ordinary contract dispute, and seemingly inconsequential aspects of domestic
procedure are transformed into complex operations involving multiple international conventions
and treaties.
To imagine a typical U.S. case, a plaintiff must first affect service on a potential
foreign defendant under the cumbersome means required by the International Convention on
190
See W. M ICHAEL REISMAN ET AL., INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL A RBITRATION: CASES, M ATERIALS

AND NOTES ON THE RESOLUTION OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS DISPUTES 1215 (1997) [hereinafter Reisman,
International Commercial Arbitration] ([A]rbitral awards as a whole enjoy a higher degree of transnational
certainty than judgments of national courts.); see also Saul Perloff, The Ties that Bind: The Limits of Autonomy
and Uniformity in International Commercial Arbitration, 13 U. Pa. Intl Bus. J. 323, 324 n.11 (1992).
191
Forum selection clauses can mitigate the uncertainties involved in where a dispute will be resolved. See
Michael E. Solimine, Forum-Selection Clauses and the Privatization of Procedure, 25 CORNELL INT 'L L.J. 51
(1992). However, if the clause is not honored by either the designated forum, which must agree to accept
jurisdiction, or by another forum, which must decline the otherwise legitimate exercise of jurisdiction, the clause
will be of little or no effect. See REISMAN, INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL A RBITRATION, supra note 190, at 91-107
(citing British and American cases that take contrasting approaches on the dismissing or staying cases based on
pending foreign litigation).
192
U.S. courts have inherent power to dismiss or stay an action in favor of foreign litigation presenting the
same claims and issues. See In re Houbigant, 914 F. Supp. 997, 1003 (S.D.N.Y.1996). In determining whether to do
so, courts consider the adequacy of relief in the alternative forum, concerns of judicial efficiency, the convenience of
the parties and witnesses, the possibility of prejudice and the temporal sequence of the actions. See Continental Time
Corporation v. Swiss Credit Bank, 543 F. Supp. 408, 410 (S.D.N.Y. 1982). However, federal courts are reluctant to
decline jurisdiction solely on the basis of concurrent proceedings in another jurisdiction. Instead, the default rule is
that [p]arallel proceedings on the same in personam claim should ordinarily be allowed to proceed simultaneously.
China Trade and Development v. M.V. Choong Yong, 837 F.2d 33, 36 (2d Cir.1987) (quoting Laker Airways Ltd. v.
Sabena Belgian World Airlines, 731 F.2d 909, 926-27 (D.C.Cir.1984)) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also
Colorado River Water Conservation Dist. v. United States, 424 U.S. 800 (1976) (federal court will abstain only in
exceptional circumstances).
51

Service Abroad.193 If successful, the plaintiff must then convince the U.S. court that it has the
power to exercise jurisdiction over the matter and should not decline jurisdiction under the
doctrine of forum non conveniens,194 even though none of the contract negotiations or
performance occurred on U.S. soil. Assuming a U.S. court asserts jurisdiction, the tempestuous
discovery procedures for domestic litigation will seem pacific by comparison to obtaining
evidence from overseas.
A plaintiff in an international dispute must navigate the quasi-
diplomatic channels of the Convention on the Gathering of Evidence Abroad195 instead of the
relatively straightforward approach of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.196 In the unfortunate
event that foreign law governs the contract, the plaintiff will have to employ experts on foreign
law to advise the court.197 Finally, even if the plaintiff prevails in this exhausting U.S. action, it
must still face the dubious prospect of enforcing a foreign judgment, most likely without the aid
of a convention or treaty. 198
193
See CONVENTION ON SERVICE A BROAD OF JUDICIAL AND EXTRAJUDICIAL DOCUMENTS IN CIVIL OR

COMMERCIAL M ATTERS, Nov. 15, 1965, 20 U.S.T. 362, 658 U.N.T.S. 163, reprinted following Fed. R. Civ. P. 4
(1992); see also Stephen B. Burbank, The World in Our Courts, 89 M ICH. L. REV. 1456, 1474-85 (1991) (Book
Review).
194
Under the doctrine of forum non conveniens, a court that otherwise has jurisdiction may decline to
exercise it if the disputes seems better suited for adjudication in a foreign tribunal. In determining whether to
exercise this discretionary doctrine, courts consider a number of factors, such as the relative ease of access to
sources of proof, the need to apply foreign law, the ability and cost to compel unwilling witnesses, the enforceability
of a potential judgment, the availability of a fair trial in a foreign tribunal and the local interest in having localized
controversies decided at home. See Gulf Oil Corp. v. Gilbert, 330 U.S. 501 (1947).
195
See CONVENTION ON TAKING EVIDENCE A BROAD IN CIVIL AND COMMERCIAL M ATTERS, Opened for
signature Mar. 18, 1970, 23 U.S.T. 2555, 847 U.N.T.S. 231.
196
See Stephen B. Burbank, The World in Our Courts, 89 M ICH. L. REV. 1456, 1488-96 (1991) (Book
Review).
197
See COMPARATIVE LAW : CASES-TEXT -M ATERIALS 72-73 (Rudolf B. Schlesinger, et al., eds., 6th
Edition) (1998).
198
See REISMAN, INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL A RBITRATION, supra note 190, at 121 ([A]rbitral awards
as a whole enjoy a higher degree of transnational certainty than judgments of national courts.); see also Saul
Perloff, The Ties that Bind: The Limits of Autonomy and Uniformity in International Commercial Arbitration, 13 U.
PA. INT L BUS. J. 323, 324 n.11 (1992). A new draft Convention has been proposed, which would establish
international standards and greater predictability in the enforcement of foreign judgments. See Edward Lau, Update
on the Hague Convention on the Recognition & Enforcement of Foreign Judgments, 6 A NN. SURV. INT L & COMP .
52

Arbitration solves most of these problems.
By putting the substantive decision-
making in the hands of private adjudicators, international arbitration avoids the issues of national
sovereignty and international comity that complicate domestic court adjudication of matters
involving foreign nationals.199
International arbitration does, however, rely on national courts to
enforce the arbitration agreement and the arbitrators award.200
The necessary role of national
courts as enforcers and overseers is in tension with the all-important goal that arbitration
proceedings be insulated from national legal systems to retain their neutrality.201
The modern
system of international arbitration resolves this tension by striking an exceedingly fine balance
between arbitral autonomy and minimum competence for national judicial review.202
The
Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards203 limits national
court review of arbitral awards to narrowly defined grounds, which exclude even clear errors of
law.204
L. 13 (2000). Because enforcement is intimately related with the basis for jurisdiction used by the court that issued
the judgment, the proposed Convention involves a difficult reexamination of the basis for jurisdiction of courts,
which in the United States implicates questions of constitutional magnitude. See Friedrich K. Juenger, A Hague
Judgments Convention?, 24 BROOKLYN J. INT L. L. 111 (1998). For in-depth treatment of the complexities of
jurisdiction over international disputes, service abroad, and other aspects that add to the complexities of international
litigation, see generally GARY B. BORN & DAVID W ESTIN, INTERNATIONAL CIVIL LITIGATION IN UNITED STATES
COURTS: COMMENTARY AND M ATERIALS (1989), and Stephen B. Burbank, The World in Our Courts, 89 M ICH. L.
REV. 1456 (1991) (Book Review of same).
199
See BORN & W ESTIN, INTERNATIONAL CIVIL LITIGATION, supra note 198, at 439-97 & 546-50.
200
See REISMAN, SYSTEMS OF CONTROL, supra note 57, at 113.
201
The risk is that if too much power is vested in national courts under the guise of review and enforcement
functions, national courts will wrest from arbitral tribunals the real power of decision. See id.
202
See id.
203
See CONVENTION ON THE RECOGNITION AND ENFORCEMENT OF FOREIGN A RBITRAL A WARDS, June 10,
1958, 21 U.S.T. 2517, 330 U.N.T.S. 38 (hereinafter the NEW YORK CONVENTION or the CONVENTION). Over
100 countries are signatories to the New York Convention. See Andrew T. Guzman, Capital Market Regulation In
Developing Countries: A Proposal, 39 VA. J. INT 'L L. 607, 645 n.102 (1999) (citing A NDREAS F. LOWENFELD,
INTERNATIONAL LITIGATION AND A RBITRATION 343 (1993)).
204
These grounds for review are limited to what might be considered the most basic notions of morality
and justice. Park, Safeguarding Procedural Integrity in International Arbitration, supra note 68 at 701.
Specifically, Article V of the New York Convention provides:
53

This balance can be upset by the lack of adequate ethical guidance and regulation.
If arbitrations neutrality can be threatened by lawyers adherence to ethical rules that conflict,
its effectiveness can be hampered by an inability to respond to ethical misconduct. As the field
of players expands and conflicts between national ethical norms become more frequent and
apparent, these conflicts will less be less amenable to informal regulation by arbitrators. If the
arbitration system cannot resolve these conflicts or offer recourse in the face of misconduct,
parties may take their ethical complaints to national courts.
If, for example, it were discovered that one counsel had participated in the
arbitration notwithstanding an impermissible conflict of interest, or that an one party had been
strategizing with its party arbitrator unbenounced to the other, it is unlikely that the injured party
would simply accept an award rendered.205
Instead, disgruntled parties are likely to attempt to
Recognition and enforcement of the award may be refused, at the request of the party against
whom it is invoked, [if there is] . . . proof that:
The parties to the agreement . . . were, under the law applicable to them, under some
incapacity, or the said agreement is not valid under the law to which the parties have subjected it
or, failing some indication thereon, under the law of the country where the award was made; or
The party against whom the award is involved was not given proper notice of the
appointment of the arbitrator or of the arbitration proceedings or was otherwise unable to present
his case; or
The award deals with a difference not contemplated by or not falling within the terms of
the submission to arbitration, or it contains decisions on matters beyond the scope of the
submission to arbitration, provided that, if the decisions on matters submitted to arbitration can be
separated from those not so submitted, that part of the award which contains decisions on matters
submitted to arbitration may be recognized and enforced; or
The composition of the arbitral authority or the arbitral procedure was not in accordance
with the agreement of the parties, or, failing such agreement, was not in accordance with the law
of the country where the arbitration took place; or
The award has not yet become binding on the parties, or has been set aside or suspended
by a competent authority of the country in which, or under the law of which, that award was made.
For a detailed discussion of the meaning and effect of these provisions, see REISMAN, SYSTEMS OF CONTROL, supra
note 57, at 111-13.
205
At the enforcement stage, under Article V of the New York Convention, the party might allege that it
was not permitted an equal opportunity to present its case or that enforcement of an award tainted with unethical
conduct by opposing counsel would offend the public policy of the state in which enforcement is sought. See, e.g.,
Fizzroy Engineering, Ltd. v. Flame Engineering, Inc. 1994 WL 700173 (N.D. Ill. 1994) (suggesting that a conflict of
interest could be grounds for refusing to enforce an award under Article V of the New York Convention).
54

involve national courts either in the situs during arbitral proceedings or during the enforcement
proceedings.
In many countries, there is considerable ambiguity over the applicable norms and
the role of courts during the pendancy of arbitration.206 Because national laws often authorize
courts to interfere in aid of arbitral proceedings, parties may be able to persuade national
courts to intervene to resolve ethical conflicts or rule on charges of ethical misconduct.
This
approach may be preferable for aggrieved parties than waiting until to the enforcement stage,
when court review is limited to the clear grounds dictated by the New York Convention. 207
Either of these tactics will undermine one of the primary objectives of arbitrationwhich is to
insulate disputes from national courts.208
Moreover, in the absence of international ethical norms or express agreement by
the parties, national courts would have no choice but to apply their own national ethical rules to
determine whether the conduct at issue was proper. If courts scrutinize awards using their own
206
To date there is considerable discord among national laws about whether arbitrators can order interim
relief and whether interim orders are enforceable under the New York Convention. For those instances when
arbitrators cannot effectively order interim relief, such remedies mu st be sought by national courts. This result can
mean that national courts get unwittingly sucked into the merits of a dispute, since many forms of interim relief
involve substantial inquires into the merits. Difficult questions arise about the collateral estoppel effect of national
court findings of fact that are made in granting or refusing to grant interim relief.
207
To date, courts have demonstrated extreme restraint when asked to invalidate or refuse enforcement of
an award even allegedly tainted with misconduct even by an arbitrator. In one of the most striking of such
examples, a British court refused to remove an arbitrator or vacate an interim award notwithstanding the fact that the
arbitrator had failed to disclose his position on the board of directors of the company that lost out to a party to the
arbitration in a bitter bidding struggle for the very contract that was at issue in the arbitration. This result is striking
because, while omitting this directorship from the C.V. provided to the parties in the selection process, the arbitrator
included on his C.V. circulated at the same time for other purposes. See Judgment from the Court of Justice, Queens
Bench
Division,
AT&T
v.
Saudi
Cable
Company (November 30, 1999), published at
http://www.newlawonline.com/cgi-bin/nlo.dll/jZXrxZmKZmo/2991017801_j.htm; see also Arizona Electric Power
Cooperative, Inc. v. Berkeley, 59 F.3d 988 (1995) (rejecting public policy challenge to arbitration award granting
attorneys fees to attorney accused of unethical conduct); Diotronik Mess-und Therapiegeraere GmbH & Co. v.
Medford Medical Instrument Co, 415 F.Supp. 133, 139 (refusing to apply public policy defense to claim that party
knowingly withheld evidence and engaged in a calculated attempt to mislead the arbitrators by omitting
reference to another agreement). Courts have been similarly reluctant to set aside awards based on allegations of
misconduct by parties or witness. See Marianne Roth, False Testimony in International Commercial Arbitration: A
Comparative View, 7 N.Y. INT L L. REV. 147 (1994) (surveying British, Swiss and U.S. court decisions that invoke
the public policy exception in extreme cases of egregious and obvious perjury).
55

national ethical norms (which are not even binding of the allegedly offending opposing attorney),
they will undermine the certainty and neutrality of the process. On the other hand, if they refuse
to investigate alleged misconduct to avoid interfering with arbitration, they will leave victims of
misconduct with no recourse and perpetrators of misconduct with no constraints.
3. Party Autonomy
If litigants go to national courts as penitents to the clergy, then parties to
arbitration are at once the anointing pontiff and the benefactors who build the church, as well as
the penitents seeking absolution. Arbitration is a flexible medium that the parties can mold and
shape to fit their needs.209
The parties create arbitral jurisdiction, select the arbitral tribunal, 210
determine the powers of the tribunal,211 and have the opportunity to set the procedures to be
followed by the tribunal.212
208
209
This ex ante control over the process is widely regarded as the
See Thomas, Disqualifying Lawyers in Arbitrations, supra note 7, at 563.

See Jack J. Coe, Jr., International Commercial Arbitration Principles and Practice in Global Context 59
(1997).
210
Most arbitral rules permit each party to select a party arbitrator, subject to objections by the opposing
party about conflicts of interest. Once selected, the two party arbitrators then select a third arbitrator who will act as
the chairperson of the tribunal. The power to select the arbiter of the dispute is one of the most distinguishing
features of arbitration and arguably the one that provides comfort enough for parties to relinquish their right to bring
claims in their own courts. See REISMAN, INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL A RBITRATION, supra note 190, at 541-72;
see also M ANI, supra note 77, at 16-17 (describing control over the composition of the tribunal as the royal road
that has lured sovereign nations into international adjudication).
211
Because the power of arbitrators derives from the arbitration agreement, arbitrators can only perform
those powers delegated to them in the arbitration agreement. See REISMAN, INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL
A RBITRATION, supra note 190, at 1174-54.
212
For example under the ICC Rules, primacy is to be given to the will of the parties when agreement
can be reached with regard to procedural choices. See CRAIG, INTERNATIONAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
A RBITRATION, supra note 101, at 8.08, at 146 & 16.01, at 269 (citing Article 11 of the ICC Rules). For further
discussion regarding procedures in arbitration, see infra note 304-328 and accompanying text. Some institutions
rules grant arbitrators authority to formulate appropriate procedural rules. See, e.g., Rules for the ICC Court of
Arbitration article 11. See also, Hans Smit, The Future of International Commercial Arbitration: A Single
Transnational Institution?, 25 COLUM. J. TRANSNAT L L. 9, 23-24 (1986). Arbitrators may be empowered to fill
gaps [in arbitration agreements] either by the parties themselves, or by the properly applicable law. William W.
Park, National Law and Commercial Justice: Safeguarding Procedural Integrity in International Arbitration, 63
Tul. L. Rev. 647 (1989) (citing Nicklisch, Agreement to Arbitrate to Fill Contractual Gaps, 5 J. Intl Arb. (1988)).
56

inducement for parties to forsake their right to appeal the substance of arbitral awards.213 For
this reason, party autonomy is a premise as essential to the system as neutrality and
effectiveness. Party autonomy and control in international arbitration may be threatened,
however, by the lack of ethical regulation.
When, as suggested above, perceived misconduct is resolved by arbitrators though
clandestine and unreviewable decisions,214 parties lose all control over the standards used to
regulate the proceedings.
Even when arbitrators resolve conflicts between ethical norms
expressly,215 their decisions may still disrupt the parties expectations.
Clients enjoy certain
prerogatives that are corollaries of the attorney obligations.216 Parties form business plans and
adjudication strategies based on the prerogatives established by their home jurisdictions ethical
rules, which they have no reason abandon in the absence of notice that those prerogatives have
been displaced in the context of international arbitration.
The arbitral tribunal may resolve this dilemma by choosing from among different
ethical standards at some point in the proceedings, assuming the tribunal has such power.217 In
resolving the conflict mid-proceeding, however, the arbitral tribunal will disrupt the expectations
with which one or both of the parties prepared for arbitration or conducted pre-arbitration
negotiations.
Examples will help illustrate.
The duty of confidentiality creates not only an
213
GARY B. BORN, INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL A RBITRATION IN THE UNITED STATES: COMMENTARY

AND M ATERIALS 44 (1994) (describing party autonomy as [o]ne of the most fundamental characteristics of
international commercial arbitration).
214
See supra notes 135-38, and accompanying text.
215
Under most arbitral rules, arbitrators have the power to fashion or choose rules to govern the procedure
if the parties have not otherwise agreed. See Rau & Sherman, supra note 170, at 97.
216
Cf. L. Ray Patterson, The Function of a Code of Legal Ethics, 35 U. MIAMI L. REV. 695 (1981) (The
function of a code of legal ethics is twofold: to define the rights and duties of lawyers and to define the rights and
duties of persons acting through the agency of a lawyer as clients.).
217
For a discussion of arbitrator powers to regulate attorney conduct, see infra Part III.B.2.
57

obligation on attorneys to maintain client confidences, but also an expectation in clients that their
confidences will be maintained.218
Because confidentiality obligations differ from jurisdiction to
jurisdiction,219 arbitrators may be called on choose a rule if it comes to light that the parties are
following different rules.220
The most obvious example is communications with an in-house
attorney in preparation for litigation, which the attorney would clearly have a duty to maintain as
confidential under U.S. rules, but not under most European regimes.221
Similar problems arise when a conflict of interest issue presents itself in an
arbitration. Again using the example of a U.S.-European arbitration, an arbitral tribunal might be
asked to evaluate a motion to disqualify based on an alleged conflict of interest that would be
prima facie impermissible and waivable by client consent in the U.S., but would be considered
under many European regimes as a purely private issue between an attorney and client.222
In
choosing between these standards (again, assuming for the moment that arbitrators have the
power)223 arbitrators will likely disrupt the expectations of one of the parties.224 If the tribunal
218
In recognition of the need to protect party expectations of confidentiality in arbitration, the rules of the
Venice Court of National and International Arbitration has introduced an innovative provision that requires that
parties treat evidence in arbitrations as confidential. See Article 37.1 of the VENCA Arbitration Rules, located at
http://www.venca.it/rules.htm#37 (evidence [in arbitrations] shall not be used or disclosed to any third party for
any purpose whatsoever by a Party whose access to that information arises exclusively as a result of its participation
in the arbitration and such use or disclosure is permitted only by consent of the Parties or the order of a court having
jurisdiction.). While this provision represents an important new attentiveness to the need to protect confidential
information, it does not address consequences for unauthorized disclosures.
219
See supra Section I.A.4.

See Geoffrey C. Hazard, Ethics, NAT L L.J., March 30, 1992, at 13. The risk that an American party
might be forced to disclose information provided to an in-house counsel is somewhat diminished by the fact that
European parties are less accustomed to discovery and, as a consequence, less aggressive in their discovery requests.
221
222
For a discussion of the substantive differences in the European and American regulation of conflicts of
interest, see supra 92-98, and accompanying text.
223
See Jonathan T. Molot, How Changes in the Legal Profession Reflect Changes in Civil Procedure, 84
VA. L. REV. 955, 1010 (1998).
220
224
Bidermann Indus. Licensing Inc. v. Avmar N.V., 570 N.Y.S.2d 33 (1st Dept 1991). For commentary,
see Thomas, Disqualifying Lawyers in Arbitrations, supra note 7, at 564. See also Image Technical Servs., Inc. v.
58

adopts the U.S. ethical standard and disqualifies counsel, the Continental party who must find
new counsel will regard the decision as disrupting their representation and denying them their
counsel of choice. Meanwhile, if the tribunal adopts the more European approach and permits
the allegedly conflicted counsel to remain, the complaining party will regard the proceedings as
manifestly unfair.
An established code of ethics will resolve these conflicts up front, sharpen
parties ability to understand the consequences of their choice to arbitrate and permit them to
direct the procedures for the resolution of their disputes.
D. Conclusion
The professional status of international practitioners is in part what confers
legitimacy, real and perceived, on international commercial arbitration system.
The rituals and
formalities that signal the existence of state power behind national adjudicatory processes225 are
generally eschewed in arbitration.
Instead, the legitimacy of international arbitration derives
from party consent, which is orchestrated by international lawyers.226
It is the international
lawyer who selects the rules, laws, sites and arbitrators on behalf of the client.227
Considering
that international lawyers wield dramatically more power in the international commercial
arbitration system than their counterparts do in domestic litigation, it is particularly alarming that
there is no express regulation of their conduct.228
Eastman Kodak Co., 820 F.Supp. 1212 (N.D. Cal. 1993) (applying forum law as to the disqualification of counsel on
account of their prior representation of a party to the litigation in various countries).
225
See Judith Resnik, Tiers, 57 S. CAL. L. REV. 837, 850 (1984) (describing the importance of ritual and
formality that pervade the adjudicatory process and legitimate decisions rendered).
226
See supra section I.C.
227
228
See id.
See supra notes 1-57 and accompanying text.
59

Instead, ethical conduct in international commercial arbitration is a jurisprudence
confidentielle, a confidential or secret theory and practice of law, known to a few key lawyers
who sometimes perform legal functions in accord with it.229 Until now, the absence of express
guidance and mechanisms for regulating attorney conduct has been masked by the implicit
consensus among practitioners, information deficiencies and the pragmatic techniques arbitrators
undoubtedly employ.
The size of the gulf between inconsistent ethical obligations is foreboding
and the consequent threat to arbitral neutrality is unmistakable, even if difficult to detect.
Articulated ethical norms can help not only to get all participants in arbitration playing by the
same rules, but also to provide an independent yardstick by which arbitrators can expressly
assess attorney conduct and by which the arbitration community can understand and critique
those assessments.230
II.
Deriving the Content of International Ethical Norms

With the need for a code ethical norms for international arbitration established,
this Part turns to the question of how the substantive content of those norms should be derived.
There is a range of possible approaches.
A code of international ethical norms could be
developed through negotiated compromise or a neutral methodology that chooses from among
the competing national norms. It is also possible that parties could be allowed to select ethical
norms using the same methods by which substantive law for arbitration is selected. The common
element in these approaches is that they view ethical norms as free-standing precepts, which are
independently modifiable and interchangeable.
Instead of these approaches, I propose adopting
what I will call a functional approach to understanding why systems have adopted particular
229
W. M ICHAEL REISMAN, FOLDED LIES: BRIBERY, CRUSADES, AND REFORMS 12 (1979).
60

ethical norms and to developing new norms for international commercial arbitration.
Section A of this Part defines the functional approach, which is premised on the
link between ethics and role. This functional approach illuminates, in Section B, why different
national systems have adopted conflicting ethical normsthose systems have assigned to
attorneys different functional roles. Based on the reasons why national systems differ, in Section
C, I describe why none of the alternative solutions for developing international norms would
yield satisfactory norms for use in international arbitration. Instead, as I will address in Section
D, the functional approach requires that we identify the specific role that attorneys do and should
perform in the international commercial arbitration system, and select ethical norms that best
facilitate their role in that context.
A. The Theoretical Underpinnings of the Functional Approach

The nature of legal ethics seems to defy precise definition. A review of the vast
body of U.S. scholarship on the subject reveals two predominant and competing definitions. The
first treats legal ethics as the law of lawyers, while the second treats ethics as ethics.231
Under the first approach, legal ethics are simply a variety of law.
Ethical codes are unique,
according to this view, only by virtue of the fact that they are promulgated by the profession (as
opposed to legislatures) and enforced through judicial agencies or bar associations (as opposed to
230
Cf. Edward Brunet, Questioning the Quality of ADR, 62 TUL. L. REV. 1, 5 (1987) (commenting
generally on the function or articulated norms that allow disputants to assess the neutrality of arbitral decisions).
231
While many commentators have identified these two distinctive approaches, this particular
characterization belongs to Thomas Shaffer, a strong proponent of the ethics-as-ethics approach. See THOMAS L.
SHAFFER, AMERICAN LAWYERS AND THEIR COMMUNITIES: ETHICS IN THE LEGAL PROFESSION 14 (1991) (emphasis
in original).
61

prosecutors).232
Proponents of this view argue that in following ethical rules, lawyers are not
making ethical decisions.233
They are simply complying with the law that governs their
particular professional conduct.
In their differentiated professional role, attorneys can pursue
their clients objectives without regard to their personal moral views or countervailing social
interests, and still comply with their professional ethical codes, and mere compliance with the
code deems their conduct ethical. In the most strident articulations of this approach, lawyers
work is described as intentionally amoral.234
The second approach rejects the ethics-as-law view, arguing that moral behavior
in any capacity (including that of the professional lawyer) necessarily includes personal
judgments about competing interests.235 Proponents of this second approach argue that lawyers
should make these sorts of personal judgments and be held accountable for them no less so than
other members of society. 236 They should not be permitted to avoid moral condemnation on the
232
See Steven Salbu, Law and Conformity, Ethics and Conflict: The Trouble with Law-Based Conceptions
of Ethics, 68 IND. L.J. 101, 104 (1992) (A code [of ethics] is law, and our codes . . . establish particularized rules,
regulations, and standards that are legalistic in the rigidity of their application.). This position of course assumes
away the all important issue of interpretation, which is necessarily predicate to deciding whether or not to abide by
ethical rules and can, in the context of ethical rules in particular, involve nuanced decision-making. See
Handwritten comments made by Ted Schneyer on prior draft.
233
See id. at 105 (1992) (Confronted with a code, the individual has only one ethical choice: to abide or
not to abide.).
234
One of the most forceful defenders of this position is Stephen Pepper. See Stephen L. Pepper, The
Lawyers Amoral Ethical Role: A Defense, A Problem, and Some Possibilities, 1986 A.B.F. Res. J. 000, 613.
Pepper argues that the amoral role of the advocate is morally justified by the societal values promoted by the
advocacy system as a whole, which he defines as autonomy, equality and diversity. See id.
235
See Gerald Postema, Moral Responsibility in Professional Ethics, 55 N.Y.U.L. REV. 63, 73 (1980)
(quoted in Ted Schneyer, Moral Philosophys Standard Misconception of Legal Ethics, 1984 W IS. L. REV. 1529,
1534.)
236
This view is primarily attributable to moral philosophers who have taken up the subject of attorney
ethics. See, e.g., Wasserman, Lawyers as Professionals: Some Moral Issues, 5 HUMAN RIGHTS 1, 12 (1975);
Wasserman, Roles and Morality, in THE GOOD LAWYER LAWYERS ROLES AND LAWYERS ETHICS (D. Luban ed.
1983); David Luban, Reason and Passion in Legal Ethics, 51 STAN . L. REV. 873 (1999) (rejecting a law-centered
theory of ethics in favor of a morality-centered theory of legal ethics); W ILLIAM H. SIMON, THE PRACTICE OF
JUSTICE : A THEORY OF LAWYERS ETHICS 1 (1998); DAVID LUBAN, LAWYERS AND JUSTICE : AN ETHICAL STUDY
(1988); David Luban, The Adversary System Excuse in THE GOOD LAWYER: LAWYERS ROLES AND LAWYERS
ETHICS (1980), Rob Atkinson, Beyond the New Role Morality for Lawyers, 51 MD. L. REV. 853 (1992); A LAN
62

ground that, as lawyers, they need only comply with the minimum requirements of ethical codes.
The ethics-as-ethics approach rejects role differentiation as an unsavory justification for
behavior by attorneys that (arguably) would be morally objectionable to an ordinary person.237
Both of these approaches err in their understanding of the relationship between
role and ethical decision-making.
The ethics-as-law approach suggests that the role of lawyer
obviates completely the need for legal professionals to engage in ethical decision-making, while
the ethics-as-ethics approach denies that the role of the lawyer as professional advocate should
affect ethical decision-making at all. Both of these approaches overlook the basic premise that
no one is ever an abstract moral agent.238 [M]oral agency is embodied in roles assigned to
actors, who are mutually inter-defined in terms of relationship.239
Situation-specific
obligations cannot be analyzed outside the context of a specific role.
For example, in
determining whether a person has a moral obligation to feed a certain child, it matters whether
the person is the childs parent, neighbor, babysitter, or a complete stranger (and even then
perhaps whether the child is on the street in front of the persons house or in a far off land).240
GOLDMAN, THE M ORAL FOUNDATIONS OF PROFESSIONAL ETHICS 90 (1980) Bayles, supra note 237, at 65 (cited in
Ted Schneyer, Moral Philosophys Standard Misconception of Legal Ethics, 1984 W IS. L. REV. 1529, 1534.). For a
more recent exploration of these issues, A RTHUR ISAK A PPLBAUM, ETHICS FOR A DVERSARIES: THE M ORALITY OF
ROLES IN PUBLIC AND PROFESSIONAL LIFE (1999).
237
See, e.g., Michael Bayles, Professionals, Clients and Others, in PROFITS AND PROFESSIONS: ESSAYS IN
BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONAL ETHICS 66 (1983); see also Richard Wasserstrom, Lawyers as Professionals: Some
Moral Issues, 5 HUMAN RIGHTS 1 (1975). Ted Schneyer has already effectively demonstrated how many aspects of
this criticism rests on empirical misconceptions and intentional ignorance about the degree of discretion conferred
on lawyers by ethics rules. See Ted Schneyer, Moral Philosophy's Standard Misconception of Legal Ethics, 1984
W IS. L. REV. 1529, 1534-43; Ted Schneyer, Some Sympathy for the Hired Gun, 41 J. LEGAL EDUC. 11 (1991).
238
See Alasdair MacIntyre, What Has Ethics to Learn from Medical Ethics?, 2 PHIL. EXCHANGE 37, 6
(1978) (cited in Schneyer, The Regulation of Lawyers, supra note 110, at 35-36).
239
See id.
This example is borrowed from Ted Schneyers provocative and insightful work in the field. See Ted
Schneyer, Moral Philosophys Standard Misconception of Legal Ethics, 1984 W IS. L. REV. 1529, 1534; see also,
VINCENT LUIZZI, A CASE FOR LEGAL ETHICS (1993) (arguing that lawyers norms are forged within a social practice
and derived from role conceptions (the lawyer as advocate, negotiator, advisor, etc.) rather than from vague starting
240
63

The ethical obligations of individuals in each of these situations differ because they perform
different functions in their roles in relation to the child. Role, therefore, far from being a set of
ethical blinders, is essential to ethical decision-making.
On the other hand, role cannot, in most instances, distill complex ethical
quandaries down to a single undeniable and controlling rule or algorithm, such that compliance
with the rule would obviate the need for any personal ethical reflection.
The functions
performed by a moral agent establish a particular range of choices that would further fulfillment
of that persons role and help identify the factors to be taken into account in making ethical
decisions.241
In professional contexts, ethical codes crystallize a critical fraction of that range
into a mandatory framework. Resolution of the other issues, which occupy what remains of that
range after the mandatory rules are carved out, is left to the personal judgment of the
professional.242
Ethics-as-law proponents are therefore misguided when they suggest that
existence of a code wholly obviates the need for individual ethical decision-making.243 Codes
make certain choices impermissible and frame the inquiry for other choices.
These observations lead to an important distinction:
Ethical codes do not
points such as John Rawls original position) (cited in Ted Schneyer, My Kind of Philosopher: A Lawyers
Appreciation of Joel Feinberg, 37 A RIZ. L. REV. 10 (1995)).
241
The differences between the multiple jurisdictions of the United States suggest that a range of possible
options are presented even when procedural arrangements are substantially similar. Indeed, the diversity in ethical
rules among the fifty states might be more pronounced if most states had not derived their codes primarily from a
model code. See W OLFRAM, supra note 76, at 68-69 (tracing history of state codes from original codes). It is also
possible that a system could adopt a dysfunctional rule, particularly if rule-making becomes hostage to special
interests.
242
The very act of interpreting ethical rules is itself an exercise in personal ethical decision-making.
243
See Maura Strassberg, Taking Ethics Seriously: Beyond Positivist Jurisprudence in Legal Ethics, 80
Iowa L.Rev. 901 (1995) (arguing that modern articulations of legal ethics cast them as positive law, which
constrains choices and s trategies for avoiding morally undesirable consequences).
64

establish the role of a professional.244
They guide and facilitate performance of an already-
established professional role. The starting point for any ethical regime, therefore, is to define the
role of the agent.
In the case of lawyers, the role of the advocate rests on an inherent
contradiction.245 On the one hand, advocates occupy a quasi-official role as agents in the process
of justice. This role imposes on them certain obligations to courts, the legal profession and the
public at large. On the other hand, they are retained by one party to ensure victory over the
other.246 In this capacity, advocates owe to their clients duties that may well be at odds with their
other obligations to courts, the profession and the public.247 The interrelationship between these
244
For this reason, criticisms by moral philosophers that legal ethics establish the Standard Conception of
the role of the lawyer are misguided. These criticisms are more appropriately understood either as an objection to
the role that social and political institutions have assigned to the lawyers, as an objection to the code drafters
selection of a particular rule within the permissible ambit or, perhaps, that the rule chose in a dysfunctional rule. If
critics are in fact complaining about the role assigned to a professional through social and political institutions, their
call must be to reform those institutions. Simply rewriting ethical codes will be futile and may even confuse matters
if the underlying roles are not reexamined.
245
See Eric E. Jorstad, Litigation Ethics: A Niebuhrian View of the Adversarial Legal System, 99 YALE L.J.
1089, 1990 (1990) (Note) (characterizing the fundamental question underlying the ethics of advocacy as How does
a litigator mediate between the states interest in the litigation and the private parties struggle for power through the
law?). This insight is given its most potent expression by Professor Post, who postulates that lawyers are despised
because they are our own dark reflection. Robert C. Post, On the Popular Image of the Lawyer: Reflections in a
Dark Glass, 75 CALIF. L. REV. 379, 386 (1987). We use lawyers to express out longing for a common good, and to
express our distaste for collective discipline. When we recognize that the ambivalence is our own, and that the
lawyer is merely our agent, we use the insight as yet another club with which to beat the profession. Id. See also
William Gaetke, Lawyers as Officers of the Court, 42 VAND. L. REV. 39, 40 (1989) (acknowledging the conflicting
duality of an attorneys role); L. Ray Patterson, Legal Ethics and the Lawyers Duty of Loyalty, 29 EMORY L.J. 909,
969 (1980) (noting that attorneys have primary obligations to clients, but also obligations as officers of the court).
Indeed, the most strident debate in legal ethics today is whether (and how) lawyers obligations to society and the
legal system should be enhanced, with a corresponding contraction in lawyers obligations to clients. See DAVID
LUBAN, LAWYERS AND JUSTICE : AN ETHICAL STUDY (1988); Marvin Frankel, The Search for Truth: An Umpirial
View; H. Richard Uviller, The Advocate, the Truth, and Judicial Hackles: A Reaction to Judge Frankels Idea, 123
U. PENN. L. REV. (1975) (questioning both the plausibility and desirability of Judge Frankels proposed expansion
of lawyers obligations to tribunal).
246
See Wilkins, Who Should Regulate Lawyers, supra note 78, at 815-18.
The contradictory role of the lawyer advocate is arguably responsible for much of the public antiattorney animus that has accompanied the profession in its march through the ages. For example, in a poll
conducted by the National Law Journal, forty-two percent of those surveyed disapproved of lawyers because either
they manipulate the legal system without any concern for right or wrong and they file too many unnecessary
lawsuits. What American Really Thinks About Lawyers, NAT L L.J., Aug. 18, 1986, at S-3 (cited in Robert C. Post,
On the Popular Image of the Lawyer: Reflections in a Dark Glass, 75 CALIF. L. REV. 379, 380 (1987)).
Meanwhile, a combined total of sixty-nine percent of those surveyed identified as the most positive aspects of
lawyers either their ability to elevate their clients as their first priority or their ability to cut through red tape. As
247
65

competing obligations can be conceptualized as a ven diagram, composed of two overlapping
circular zones. At the centers of each sphere are four of the core ethical obligations that were
taken up in Part Ifairness and truthfulness in the middle of the one sphere, and loyalty and
confidentiality in the other.248
The systems of the world agree on the core principles of legal ethics and the
general structure of the ven diagram because these features derive from the fundamental features
of the advocates role that is common in every system.249 An advocate may be defined as a
representative of a party who is retained to bring professional expertise to aid in the partys
presentation of it case before a neutral tribunal. 250 Outside of these fundamental features of
advocacy, however, and contrary to popular belief, the professional advocates of the world
perform very different functions in relation to other actors (judges, opposing counsel, clients and
Post observes, these statistics demonstrate that lawyers are applauded for following their clients wishes and
bending the rules to satisfy those wishes . . . [and] at the very same time condemned for using the legal system to get
what their clients want, rather than to uphold the right and denounce the wrong. See Robert C. Post, On the
Popular Image of the Lawyer: Reflections in a Dark Glass, 75 CALIF. L. REV. 379, 380 (1987); see also Marvin
Mindes, The Lawyer as Trickster or Hero, ABF Research Journal (circa 1977-83).
248
See supra Part I.A. For the moment, I will leave obligation of independence to one side.
249
Originally, with the rise of Greek and Roman civilizations, lawyers were not permitted in court and
litigants were left to rely on own deftness in presenting their cases. See M ARK M. ORKIN, LEGAL ETHICS: A STUDY
OF PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT 3 (1957); FREDERIC W. M AITLAND & FRANCIS C. M ONTAGUE, A SKETCH OF ENGLISH
LEGAL HISTORY 92-97 (James F. Colby, ed.1915). Even then, however, litigants sought aid behind the scenes from
professional orators, who would prepare speeches to enhance litigants presentation of their cases. See ROSCOE
POUND, THE LAWYER FROM A NTIQUITY TO M ODERN TIMES 32-33 (1953) (describing Greek speechwriters, called
logographos, who for a fee would draw up a speech based on their knowledge of Athenian law and their
understanding of the passions and prejudices of Athenian juries). Eventually, because success belonged to the side
who presented the better case, trained experts were allowed in court proceedings and were employed by anyone who
wanted to secure victory at trial. See id. at 33; DAMAKA, FACES OF JUSTICE , supra note 83, at 141; see also
Jonathan Rose, The Legal Profession in Medieval England A History of Regulation, 48 SYRACUSE L. REV. 1, 7-8
(1998) (noting that most scholars point to the reign of Edward I (1272-1307) as the time in which the legal
profession was borne).
250
The term advocate, and its counterparts in other Western European languages (i.e., the French avocat
and avou, the Italian Avvocato, the Spanish abogado, the Swedish advokat, or the Polish adwocacka) have common
calling historical origins. See LINDA S. SPEDDING, TRANSNATIONAL LEGAL PRACTICE IN THE EEC AND THE UNITED
STATES 88 (1987).
66

witnesses) in their respective adjudicatory systems.251
As a consequence of these different roles assigned to advocates, outside of the
nucleic centers of the ethical obligations represented in the ven diagram, national systems
diverge on how expansively they construct the diameter of each surrounding sphere, and in how
they engineer the overlap between them. If a system envisions the lawyers role as primarily that
of agent to the client, that system will cast an expansive sphere of obligation to the client, which
overshadows the attorneys obligations to the court and society. Other systems may conceive of
the attorney as principally an instrument of the state, and thus construct an almost the reverse
relationship between the spheres,252 while still others may treat attorneys as occupying a role
between instrument of the state and instrument of the client, and draw the spheres as roughly
equivalent.253
The blueprints for the role of the legal advocate in the decision-making structure
and in relation to other actors are the procedural arrangements of a legal system. 254
While all
251
These often-stark disparities in role become readily apparent even at the level of linguistic translation of
the term lawyer. Notwithstanding the supposed universality of the term, [t]he question who is a lawyer? is
posed by efforts to make comparisons across categories not corresponding to formal divisions on the national level.
Philip S.C. Lewis, Comparison and Change in the Study of Legal Professions 27-79, in LAWYERS IN SOCIETY,
VOLUME THREE: COMPARATIVE THEORIES 32 (Richard L. Abel and Philip S.C. Lewis, eds. 1989) [hereinafter
LAWYERS IN SOCIETY, VOLUME THREE]; see also Kelly Crabb, Providing Legal Services in Foreign Countries:
Making Room for the American Attorney, 83 COLUM. L. REV. 1767, 1770 & n.13, 1779-82 & nn.62-82 (1983)
(Note) (describing the various national designations for persons who perform legal functions).
252
Highly authoritarian and socialist regimes envision that lawyers, like all workers, are devoted primarily
to the good of society and only minimally to clients, since more vigorous advocacy on behalf of a client might
conflict with the collective good. See supra notes 182, and accompanying text ; see also W OLFRAM, supra note
76, at 5 (describing the diminished obligations lawyers in soviet countries owe to their clients); A LBERT HUNG-YEE
CHEN, A N INTRODUCTION TO THE LEGAL SYSTEM OF THE PEOPLES REPUBLIC OF CHINA 141-42 (1992) (noting that
the criminal defense lawyer in China is not the agent or spokesman for the defendant, but rather has an obligation
to the state to assist in the defendants moral reformation) (cited in R. Randall Kelso, A Post-Conference Reflection
on the Lawyers Duty to Promote the Common Good, 40 S. TEX. L. REV. 299, 301 (1999)).
253
As will be explained in the following section, this layout might describe the role assigned to lawyers in
civil law systems. See infra Section II.B.
254
See Resnik, Tiers, supra note 18, at 839 (arguing that procedure has normative content reflected in the
features of procedural models and the structure for decision-making). Other factors that affect the role of the
67

advocates represent their clients in courtroom proceedings, procedural rules, along with rules of
evidence, dictate the specific activities through which the lawyer will perform that obligation.
Procedures, in turn, are chosen to reflect and promote the values that underlie the larger legal
culture of a society. They emerge out the culture of a society, or those beliefs about how to
properly relate to each other that are deeply held, widely shared, and persistent over time.255
Institutions for dispute resolution, and the roles assigned to actors in those institutions, are both
an expression of a cultures values and a mechanism for maintaining those values.256
As
Professor Damaka explains:

[D]ominant ideas about the role of government inform views on
the purpose of justice, and the latter are relevant to the choice of
many procedural arrangements. Because only some forms of
justice fit specific purposes, only certain forms can be justified in
terms of the prevailing ideology.257
If cultural values motivate procedural choices, procedural choices determine the advocates role
in adjudication, and advocates role shapes the boundaries of ethical norms, then national ethical
regimes can ultimately be understood as reflecting procedurally-determined and culturally-bound
differences in the values of national systems.
B. The Functional Approach in Comparative Perspective
attorney are rules of evidence and cultural traditions that remain abstract social norms. For an interesting discussion
of how modern trends in U.S. civil procedure, which diminishes the role of judge in applying the substantive law to
facts, may have contributed to excesses in attorney advocacy, see Jonathan T. Molot, How Changes in the Legal
Profession Reflect Changes in Civil Procedure, 84 VA. L. REV. 955 (1998).
255
A legal culture may be defined as those beliefs about how to properly relate to each other that are
deeply held, widely shared, and persistent over time. See Oscar G. Chase, Legal Processes and National
Character, 5 CARDOZO J. INT L & COMP . L. 1, 8 (1997) (citing GEERT HOFSTEDE, CULTURE S CONSEQUENCES 25
(1980). Unlike a geographically defined community, the arbitration community, the participants in the system is
256
257
See id. at 9.
DAMAKA, FACES OF JUSTICE , supra note 83, at 11.
68

This Section presents a comparative proof of the theory laid out in the last
section in order to illuminate the seemingly enigmatic reasons for the differences among national
ethical regimes that were discussed in Part I and to illustrate the explanatory potential of the
functional approach. The thesis of the functional approach is that ethical regimes are tied to
roles performed by actors (judges, advocates, witnesses and parties) in different systems.
Consequently, a comparative proof must begin with an inquiry into the inter-relational roles
established by various adjudicatory systems.258
In any adjudicatory apparatus, the judge 259 is the primary determinant from which
counsel, witnesses and parties are cast in their respective roles.260 In continental systems, such as
those in Germany and Italy, the judge can be described as the engine of the adjudication
machine. The judge is the one who schedules, sets the agenda for and presides over a series of
hearings, any one of which may ultimately decide the case.261 During the episodic hearings that
characterize civilian proceedings, it is the judge, acting on recommendations from the parties,
258
For pragmatic reasons, I have limited my comparative analysis to the distinctions between roles of the
attorney in the U.S. system on the one hand, and in Continental civil law systems on the other. While this focus
undoubtedly poses some inherent limitations, these two prototypes or (in Max Weber and Mirjian Damakas
parlance) ideal types are useful for the purpose of demonstrating the ability of the functional approach to explicate
the reasons behind different ethical regimes. See DAMAKA, FACES OF JUSTICE , supra note 83, at 9. The limited
focus of my comparative analysis reflects primarily limitations of my knowledge, not a judgment that norms for
international commercial arbitration need only consider European and American perspectives. To the contrary,
especially given the expanding role of arbitration in developing nations, it is particularly important that legal
systems outside of Europe and the United States be incorporated into the discussion. See, generally, Amr A.
Shalakany, Arbitration and the Third World: A Plea for Reassessing Bias under the Specter of Neoliberalism, 41
HARV. INT L L.J. 419 (2000) (investigating the disciplinary bias of international commercial arbitration in light of
complaints by developing countries that it favors the economic interests of the North); John Beechey, International
Commercial Arbitration: A Process Under Review and Change, Aug/Oct Dis. Res. J. 32 (2000) (explaining that
there remains a huge task to convince developing nations that they can expect a fair hearing before international
arbitration tribunals).
259
Although I will use the term judge, it is worth noting Professor Damakas observation that, when
comparing adjudicatory regimes, the term judge can be misleading since it is not a term that is universally
assigned to the decision-maker of an adjudication. The most obvious exception is the jury. See DAMAKA, FACES
OF JUSTICE , supra note 83, at 54.
260
The contrasting role of the judge in civil and common law systems has been called the grand
discriminant between the two systems. See Langbein, supra note 124,at 830.
69

who decides which witnesses and documents will be presented, and the order of such proof. 262
Most strikingly to common-law trained lawyers, the civilian judge conducts the actual
interrogation of witnesses. In the ordinary civil law case, there is little or no questioning by the
parties through their lawyers.263
The judge is expected to take an active role in both clarifying
the issues and encouraging settlement.
To this end, the civil law judge is expected to express
views as to the merits of the case as it proceeds and to move from an initial position of
impartiality to one that favors one party over the other.264
While continental judges have broad managerial powers, they are expected to
apply the law in an almost mechanical way, remaining a controlled instrument of the
legislature.265
At least according to the internal folklore, judicial interpretation of [civil] codes
261
See id. at 831.

As John Langbein describes, in the German system,
The very concepts of plaintiffs case and defendant's case are unknown. In our system those
concepts function as traffic rules for the partisan presentation of evidence to a passive and ignorant trier. By
contrast, in German procedure the court ranges over the entire case, constantly looking for the jugularfor the issue
of law or fact that might dispose of the case.
262
See John H. Langbein, The German Advantage in Civil Procedure, 52 U. CHI. L. REV. 823 (1985).
Although the German judge is obviously much more active than the U.S. version, the inquisitorial role of the
German judge in civil proceedings can be, and has been, dramatically overstated. See Ronald J. Allen, Idealization
and Characture in Comparative Legal Scholarship, 82 NW . L. REV. 785 (1988) (criticizing Langbein for overstating
the role of the judge in German civil proceedings).
263
Conventional wisdom among German advocates is that a lawyer should be wary of putting more than
three questions to a witnesses because more risks implicating that the judge did not do a satisfactory job in initial
questioning. See Chase, National Character, supra note 257, at 4-5. While the conventional wisdom is not always
followed, it demonstrates the gravitational force of the judges power over fact gathering.
264
See DAMAKA, FACES OF JUSTICE , supra note 83, at 138 (noting that Continental decision-makers are
expected to conduct pre-hearing review of the files and are not presumed to come to the case with a virgin mind);
John H. Langbein, The German Advantage in Civil Procedure, 52 U. CHI. L. REV. 823, 835 (1985) (noting that [a]s
the case progresses the judge discusses it with the litigants, sometimes indicating provisional views of the likely
outcome . . . and sometimes encourage[s] a litigant to abandon a case that is turning out to be weak or hopeless, or to
recommend settlement).
265
See JOHN HENRY M ERRYMAN, THE LONELINESS OF THE COMPARATIVE LAWYERA ND OTHER ESSAYS
IN FOREIGN AND COMPARATIVE LAW 184 (1999).
70

does not involve the judges in a process of law creation.266 This perception of judges as the
appliers (rather than makers) of law is both evidenced and reinforced by the formulaic,
bureaucratic style of civil law judicial opinions, which never include dissents and usually take
the form of a string of phrases sounding in a detached tone and connected by whereass.267 A
judicial opinion, with its rhythmic recitals and studied detachment, is the voice of the judicial
institution obedient to legislative commands, not the personal judgment of an individual
adjudicator.
In relation to a judge who is gathering facts, shaping issues and dutifully applying
the law, the role of the civil law attorney is primarily that of guide to the court.268 The role of
guide is, in many respects, collaborative. Some nations make this collaborative role explicit. As
explained above, in civil law countries, lawyers are sometimes referred to as unsalaried public
servants, enjoy special access to public buildings and are required to wear robes that resemble
those of judges.269
In contrast to these continental arrangements, the American system is built on a
model of party contest before a judicial tabula rasa.270
The American judge (or jury) is
supposed to obtain only through the party dialectic all evidence that must be evaluated and legal
266
See Jonathan E. Levitsky, The Europeanization of the British Legal Style, 42 A M. J. COMP .L. 347, 37980 (1994); see also M ERRYMAN supra note 242, at 187 (The work of the judge is . . . simple: he Is presented with a
body of principles built into a carefully elaborated systematic structure, which he applies to a body of specific norms
whose meaning is readily understood and whose application is comparatively easy. The applicable norms need only
to be identified and applied[.]).
267
See RENE DAVID & JOHN E.C. RIERLY, MAJOR LEGAL SYSTEMS IN THE W ORLD TODAY 142 (3d ed.
268
See id.
269

See DAMAKA, FACES OF JUSTICE , supra note 83, at 138.
1985).
270
71

arguments that must be analyzed271 and they are expected to remain completely neutral until it is
time to render the final judgment.272 As a consequence of the relatively passive role of decisionmakers, the attorneys are given an active role in managing the proceedings. The attorney in U.S.
litigation gathers evidence, shapes the issues for trial and presents evidence at trial, including
examining and cross-examining witnesses.
Because the judge only rules on pre-trial motions
that are brought by the parties, the attorneys act not as guides, but primarily as clients
strategists, evaluating and advising when and how various procedural tactics should be used.
While U.S. judges (and juries) are comparatively passive in their fact-finding role,
it is readily acknowledged that U.S. judges make law. 273 Parties go to court, therefore, not only
seeking resolution of an individual dispute, but potentially changes in the law.274 When judges
have the power to make law, the role of the advocate expands from that of strategist who can
represent the clients cause under existing law, to that of lobbyist, who can urge potential
changes in the law.
Understanding the different roles that the two systems have assigned to advocates
in relation to courts and their clients, the seemingly opaque reasons for the divergences in their
ethical regimes become clear.
When attorneys are cast in the role of guide to the court, the
271
Professor Reitz characterizes the difference between U.S. and German judges is that U.S. judges view
themselves as umpires between the contending parties, rather than government officials responsible for determining
the truth of the allegations. Reitz, supra note 17, at 992.
272
See id.
273
See A LEXANDER M. BICKEL, THE LEAST DANGEROUS BRANCH: THE SUPREME COURT AT THE BAR OF
POLITICS 16-23 (1962) (arguing that judges make law even though they are not elected or constrained in the same
way legislatures are).
274
See generally GUIDO CALABRESI , A COMMON LAW FOR THE A GE OF STATUTES (1982) (arguing that the
structure of the courts and the nature of the common law makes them better suited to resolve some policy issues than
the legislature); Thomas W. Merrill, Does Public Choice Theory Justify Judicial Activism After All?, 21 HARV. J.L.
& PUB. POLY 219 (1997) (suggesting that courts provide less expensive access to government than direct lobbying
of the legislature).
72

sphere comprised of obligations relating to fairness and truth must expand, protruding over a
shrunken sphere of obligation to the client.
Attorney independence from the client becomes
necessary to keep attorneys focused on their role as guide. In the U.S. system, meanwhile, where
attorneys are cast as strategists and lobbyists for their clients, the sphere of obligation to clients
must be more imposing to accommodate the expansion of this role.
Consequently, the
obligations to the state and the system are partially overshadowed,275 and independence shifts to
become a mechanism primarily aimed at maintaining independence from the state.
These models are the frameworks in which the specific content of national ethical
rules is located.
Beginning with the rule about pre-testimonial communication, if witnesses are
presented by one party as part of its case,276 it seems perfectly reasonable, subject to certain
limitations, to permit attorneys to discuss the case with witnesses before they testify. In fact, it is
really necessary in order for the litigants to be able to prepare their case.277 On the other hand,
the reason why Continental systems preclude attorneys from speaking to witnesses is that the
court is assigned the role of fact gathering and the advocates function is primarily to guide the
court in that process.278
In that context, an attorney would be intruding on the province of the
275
See Daly, supra note 6, at 1291 (noting that the Preamble to the [U.S.] Model Rules emphasizes a
lawyers obligation to the client in contrast to the Preamble to the CCBE Code . . . [which] emphasizes a lawyers
obligation to society.).
276
The U.S. system stops short of treating witnesses as classical Rome did, expecting them not only to
describe facts of the case, but also to express solidarity with and advocate on behalf of one party. See Mirjan
Damaka, Rational and Irrational Proof Revisited, 5 CARDOZO J. INT L & COMP . L. 25, 28 (1997). While U.S.
witnesses do not technically belong to one party, U.S. attorneys approach litigation with a proprietary concept of
evidence. See Damaka, Evidentiary Transplants, supra note 167, at 845. The formal status of witnesses as neutral
has little practical effect, except that it is used as a basis for opposing efforts by parties to prevent their opposition
from speaking to non-party witnesses. See W OLFRAM, supra note 76, at 647.
277
As noted above, several U.S. courts have recognized that failure to prepare a witness is a breach of an
attorneys ethical obligations. See supra note 81.
278
See Langbein, supra note 124, at 864; see also Reitz, supra note 17, at 994 (stating that American
courts could only adopt the German rule discouraging pretrial contact with witnesses by changing our cultural
definition of the lawyers role).
73

court if the attorney tried to discuss with the witness the facts of the case.279
The U.S. systems prohibition against ex parte communications is framed in more
absolute terms because the decision-maker is expected to be a blank slate on which the parties, in
heated contest, draw their dispute.
The system permits no stray renderings by one party that
might unfairly alter the tableau. On the other hand, when advocates act as guide to the court as
in civil law systems, there is less concern that extra-judicial information will endanger the
validity of the result, and hence more relaxed ethical standards regarding ex parte
communication in civil law systems.280
Under similar reasoning, toleration of ex parte
communication in the domestic U.S. arbitration may reflect an acknowledgement that so-called
party arbitrators are not expected to be completely impartial, but were in fact chosen because
of their supposed predisposition toward one party. 281
If party arbitrators are expected to be
predisposed in favor of the selecting party and to act more akin to a partys advocate on the
tribunal than a neutral umpire, the prospect of party communication with the party arbitrator is
279
Relatedly, the reason why there is no apparent obligations for an attorney to report client perjury or
intent to commit perjury is that continental systems distinguish sharply between the role of party and that of witness.
Parties to an action are rarely permitted to testify because this from the dubious choice between testifying against
their own interest and perjuring themselves. It is likely the rarity of party testimony that is responsible for the lack
of attention to attorney obligations regarding client perjury.
280
Compare W OLFRAM, supra note 76, at 604-06 (purpose of prohibition against ex parte communications
with judge is to prevent communicating party from gaining unfair advantage), with John H. Langbein, The German
Advantage in Civil Procedure, 52 U. CHI. L. REV. 823 (1985) (describing how under German procedure the judge is
not expected to be simply an impartial adjudicator, so there is little concern that improper influence will be exerted
on or by the parties or that information communicated ex parte will endanger the validity of the result).
281
In a case finding that ex parte contact was not improper, the Eleventh Circuit explained: An arbitrator
appointed by a party is a partisan only one step removed from the controversy and need not be impartial. See
Lorzano v. Maryland Casualty Co., 850 F.2d 1470 (11th Cir. 1988). The requirement of an impartial tribunal is
assured by tiebreaker arbitral chairperson, although opinions differ about the desirability or propriety of predisposed
party arbitrators. See Desiree A. Kennedy, Predisposed with Integrity: The Elusive Quest for Justice in Tripartite
Arbitrations, 8 GEO. J. LEGAL ETHICS 749, 765 (1995) (arguing against the legitimacy of ex parte contact with party
arbitrators).
74

not terribly objectionable.282 Such communication may even be regarded as necessary to ensure
that the party-arbitrator fulfills her assigned role.283
To be an appropriate guide to a continental judge, civilian lawyers must
maintain a certain degree of independence from their clients so that their professional judgment
remains unclouded by the clients objectives.284
In-house representation and attorneys
compensated through contingency fees, whose livelihood is tied to the clients success, are
incompatible with this requirement of professional detachment from the clients cause.
On the
other hand, an attorney who acts independently of the client need not be as strictly regulated with
regard to conflicts of interest.
If the lawyers role is limited to aiding the court in finding
legislatively determined answers, obligations of disclosure to the court take on a greater

importance and stricter restraints on creative arguments are inevitable.
Additionally, when
assigned a collaborative role with the court, opposing counsel become attenuated cocollaborators.
Confidential information exchanges between co-collaborators may require some
282
Some U.S. cases attempt to apply the notion of the judge as a blank slate in challenging arbitral awards
when arbitrators have attempted to gather facts on their own by, for example, visiting the site of a dispute. This
standard of complete ignorance is perhaps unrealistic in arbitration, where the decision-makers are often chosen
because of their experience with or knowledge of a particular industry. See Carteret County v United Contractors,
S.E.2d 816 (1995) (holding that arbitrators are not considered biased simply because they are members of the same
profession as one of the parties).
283
Under this interpretation, objections to ex parte communications with arbitrators may be misdirected at
the symptom instead of the cause. Ex parte communications are tolerated because the arbitrator is presumed to be
partial, it is not the ex parte communications that cause partiality. Accordingly, the solution for those who object to
arbitrator partiality must include not only prohibitions against ex parte communications, see Kennedy, Predisposed
with Integrity, supra note 281, at 789, but also strictures that apply during the selection process.
284
In European systems, this requirement of independence is elevated to the same level of importance as
judicial impartiality. Article 2.1.1 of the CCBE Code provides Such independence is as necessary to trust in the
process of justice as the impartiality of the judge. See Terry, Introduction to the European Communitys Legal
Ethics, supra note 10, at 15. Professional independence is sometimes touted as a core value in American legal
ethics, but the regulatory history of independent judgment is so thin that the value is dismissed in some quarters
as a professional shibboleth. Ted Schneyer, Multidisciplinary Practice, Professional Regulation, and the AntiInterference Principle in Legal Ethics, 84 M INN. L. REV. 1469, 1499-1502 (2000) (contrasting emphasis in Europe
on independence from clients and U.S. emphasis on preserving independence form 3rd parties who would interfere
with lawyers judgment on behalf of client).
75

protection, while the need to protect information or advice disseminated from the quasi-official
attorney to the client is less obvious.285
Moreover, if questions of confidentiality come up only
infrequently in civil law proceedings, and primarily in response to questions from a judge,286
there less concern in leaving attorneys with discretion about when information can be
disclosed.287
By contrast, when advocates are cast in the role of strategist and lobbyist for the
client, it is less plausible and less desirable for them to maintain a detached independence from
the client.
Instead, client confidences take on a new level of importance and necessarily
heightened loyalty obligations make even attenuated conflicts of interest impermissible, at least
in the absence of client consent.
In their role as lobbyist, creative argumentation is not only
permissible but necessary, and their independence from state institutions, including the courts,
becomes all the more important.
Communication with the client is essential and withholding
important communications from an opposing party would interfere with representation.

Ultimately, these differing roles assigned to attorneys reflect the larger cultural
values of the societies that produced them.
Using very broad brushstrokes to illustrate the
opposing scenes, it has been argued that the greater authority of civil law judges reflects in
285
Notably, in the Anglo-American tradition, the attorney-client privilege was originally thought to belong
to the barrister rather than the client. See Geoffrey C. Hazard, Jr., An Historical Perspective on the Attorney-Client
Privilege, 66 CAL. L. REV. 1061, 1071 (1978). A barrister was considered not merely an officer of the court but a
member of it[.] It would be not only inconvenient for them to testify (as they were the persons charged with
presenting arguments and evidence in court), but also a violation similar to asking a modern judge to disclose
matters learned in camera. See id.
286
Comparatively few issues regarding the ethical duty of confidentiality are ever raised because the
judges oral questioning and the affidavits are more circumscribed than lawyers' questioning of witnesses in the
United States. See Daly, Dichotomy Between Standards and Rules, supra note 6, at n.184.
287
See supra Section II.A.2.
76

German society a greater acceptance of authority and less tolerance for uncertainty. 288
Meanwhile, the expanded control of parties in U.S. proceedings, and the consequent role of the
U.S. attorney are strategist and lobbyist, are said to be linked to the American commitment to
individualism and an exaltation of due process over efficiency and even fact-finding accuracy.289
Thus, while legal ethics are often regarded as universal by virtue of their intimate relationship to
moral philosophy, they are in fact vitally linked to the cultural values of the systems that
produced them. 290
C. The Implausibility of Methods Other Than the Functional Approach

With an understanding of the relationship between ethics, procedure and systemic
cultural values, it becomes apparent why other proposed or possible methods for deriving ethical
norms for international arbitration are unlikely to succeed.
A code of ethics for international
arbitration must be linked to the values of the international arbitration system and the procedures
that reflect those values.
Other approaches treat ethical norms as autonomous principles,
independent from the procedural arrangements and cultural values of the systems from which
they derive.
288
See Oscar G. Chase, Legal Processes and National Character, 5 CARDOZO J. INT L & COMP . L. 1, 19
(1997) (arguing that the inquisitorial legal process reflects a legal culture in Germany, which is more comfortable
with authority).
289
By maximizing the role of partisans who have obvious incentives to distort the truth in favor of their
personal interests, including permitting parties to be witnesses on their own behalf, the U.S. litigation model
arguably prioritizes litigants right to a day in court over the accuracy of the ultimate result. See DAMAKA,
FACES OF JUSTICE , supra note 83, at 11; Chase, Legal Processes and National Character, 5 CARDOZO J. INT L &
COMP . L. 1, 19 (1997) (arguing that the inquisitorial legal process reflects a legal culture in Germany, which is more
comfortable with authority, while the American system, in keeping with the American legal culture, emphasizes
party autonomy over the process as an expression of individualism and a commitment to due process); JEROLD S.
A UERBACH, JUSTICE W ITHOUT LAW ? 10 (1983)(arguing that the dominant ethic [of American Society] is
competitive individualism and linking that ethic to U.S. legal institutions and processes).
290
Notions of moral philosophy as universal are also flawed. [E]very moral philosophy offers explicitly
or implicitly at least a partial conceptual analysis of the relationship of an agent to his or her reasons, motives,
77

1. Negotiated Compromise
The most common method for deriving international legal rules is negotiated
compromise aimed at harmonizing national rules.
that these processes can be ineffectual.
Increasingly, however, it has been recognized
In areas that implicate value choices (such as human
rights and, as explained above, attorney ethics) these formal negotiation processes breakdown
because is not possible because to reason which systems values are better. On questions of
values, reason is silent; conflict between rival values cannot be rationally settled.291 Instead,
when delegates with competing values bargain over whose rule or what hybridized rule should
control, the norms produced frequently reflect the relative power of the negotiators or the
anomalies of compromise.292
When development of international norms is left to the lawyer-
bureaucrat, attached to the policy-making machinery such norms are no longer mediated
through the development of a conceptual framework [that] is in tune with the changes of
international reality.293 The result of these struggles is often a resort to the lowest-common
denominator or compromise at the level of individual norms that undermines the rationality of
the whole.294
We do not need to speculate whether this problem could manifest itself in the
intentions and actions, and in so doing generally presupposes some claim that these concepts are embodied or at
least can be in the real social world. A LASDAIR M ACINTYRE , A FTER VIRTUE 23 (2nd ed. 1984).
291
See M ACINTYRE , A FTER VIRTUE supra note 290, at 26.
292
See Friedrich V. Kratochwil, Rules, Norms, and Decisions: On the Conditions of Practical and Legal
Reasoning in International Relations and Domestic Affairs 12 (1995).
293
See id. (criticizing international legal norms developed by the lawyer-bureaucrat, attached to the
policy-making machinery because such norms tend to be more informed by political expediencies than technical
precision); see also Nicholas Onuf, Law-Making and Legal Thought, in LAW -M AKING IN THE GLOBAL COMMUNITY
(Nicholas Onuf, ed., 1982) (discussing the impact of the shift in development of international law from scholars to
bureaucrats).
294
See id. at 12.
78

context of negotiated international ethical norms because we have direct historical examples. In
1956, the International Bar Association (IBA) adopted the IBA International Code of Legal
Ethics (IBA Code).295 While called a Code and referring to Rules, the IBA Code is more
accurately characterized as an aspirational statement of professional culture.296 For example,
on the subject of conflicts of interest, lawyers are admonished only to preserve independence in
the discharge of their professional duty.297
In this norm, the IBA Code does not attempt to
resolve, or even acknowledge, that systems have distinctly different notions of what constitutes a
conflict of interest or even different definitions of what the term independence means.298
There were similar problems with the successor to the IBA Code, the 1977 Declaration of
Perugia on the Principles of Professional Conduct of the Bars and Law Societies of the European
Community.299
The Perugia Principles contained only eight brief ethical pronouncements,
which were essentially an obscure discourse on the function of a lawyer in society and the
nature of the rules of professional conduct.300 Again, they did not even acknowledge or attempt
to resolve the difficult conflicts between national ethical norms.
The CCBE Code is in many ways a horse of a different color.
Unlike its
predecessors, it contains more specifics and it grapples with many difficult areas of conflict
295
Reprinted in Law Without Frontiers: A Comparative Survey of the Rules of Professional Ethics
Applicable to the Cross-Border Practice of Law 361-62 (Edwin Godfrey, ed. 1995).
296
See Daly, Dichotomy Between Standards and Rules, supra note 6 at 1120.
297
See id.
298
See supra notes 81-93, and accompanying text. One notable accomplishment of the IBA Code, perhaps
even directly attributable to its vagaries, is that it received endorsements from representatives such unlikely places of
Syria, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Pakistan, and Turkey, although admittedly these endorsements may
have been influenced by the post-colonialist forces. M. McCary, Bridging Ethical Borders: International Legal
Ethics with an Islamic Perspective, TEX. INT L L.J. 289, 294 (2000).
299
See The Declaration of on the Principles of Professional Conduct of the Bars and Law Societies of the
European Community (1977).
300
See Daly, Dichotomy Between Standards and Rules, supra note 6, at 1120.
79

between national ethical regimes.
While undoubtedly a laudable accomplishment, the idea of
replicating the CCBE Code on an international scale is ominous. Even though the CCBE applies
to only a relatively homogeneous group of European countries,301 and even though it was
effectively the third effort at an international code of ethics, it took more than eight years of work
to complete.302
Looking to its substance, the CCBE still ducks some of the most difficult
questions that continue to plague regulation of cross-border practice, but which must be resolved
definitely by any code of ethics for international arbitration.303
Moreover, because the CCBE
Code regulates cross-border practice,304 as opposed to practice before international tribunals, in

many instances when its drafters found harmonization of ethical norms impossible, they relied on
choice-of-law provisions, although not always successfully.305 In one telling example, the CCBE
301
The following countries are member states of the CCBE: Belgium, Denmark, France, Ge rmany, Greece,
Ireland, Italy Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom. See Terry, Introduction to the
European Communitys Legal Ethics, supra note 10, at 1 & Appendix C. In addition to the member states, there are
several observer countries: Austria, Cyprus, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the Czech Republic. See
John Toulmin, A Worldwide Common Code of Professional Ethics?, 15 FORDHAM INT L L.J. 673 (1991-92). All of
the CCBE countries can be described as western-style democracies, with free market economies, strong industrial
bases, high per capita income levels and relatively well educated populations. See Chase, National Character, supra
note 257, at 7; see also Laurence R. Helfer & Anne-Marie Slaughter, Toward a Theory of Effective Supranational
Adjudication, 107 YALE L.J. 273, 276 (1997) (acknowledging that the nations of Western Europe share a common
core of social, political and legal values).
302
See Terry, Introduction to the European Communitys Legal Ethics, supra note 10, at 5-9. An indication
of the inherent difficulties in developing an international set of ethical rules for international arbitration is a recent
announcement by the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce that, after years of work, it
placed on hold its ethics project because the project encountered a lot of problems. See Stockholm Institutes
Ethics Project on Hold, 12 M EALEYS INT L A RB. REP . 12 (1994).
303
See Terry, Introduction to the European Communitys Legal Ethics, supra note 10, at 19 & 25.
304
Although these rules have not been entirely satisfactory, it is not certain if the reason is the inherent
nature of conflicts-of-law rules in ethics, or because these particular rules are unclear. See id., at 678; see also
Lauren R. Frank, Ethical Responsibilities and the International Lawyer Mind the Gaps, 2000 U. ILL. L. REV. 957,
963-64 (Note).
305
See Carsten R. Eggers & Tobias Trautner, An Exploration of the Difference Between the American
Notion of Attorney-Client Privilege and the Obligations of Professional Secrecy in Germany, 7 SPG INT L L.
PRACTICUM 23, (1994); Terry, Introduction to the European Communitys Legal Ethics, supra note 10, at 28. In the
area of attorney advertising, even reaching agreement on a choice-of-law rule, as opposed to a substantive provision,
seems to have eluded the drafters of the CCBE. Louise L. Hill, Lawyer Publicity in the European Union: Bans Are
80

Code attempted to harmonize conflicting rules about whether an attorney who receives a
communication from opposing counsel marked confidential has an obligation to withhold it as
confidential or may have an obligation (or a desire) to communicate the information to her
client.306
Instead of adopting a definitive rule resolving the conflicting approaches, the Article
5.3 of the CCBE Code simply instructs that if an attorney wants correspondence handled
confidentially, she should clearly state such.
If the addressee is not able to withhold the
correspondence from the client, she must return it without revealing its contents.307
Other
examples of unresolved conflicts, such as in the area of confidentiality in the face of client
wrongdoing, are less obvious.
For example, Rule 3.3 of the CCBE Codes states in absolute
terms that attorneys are obliged to maintain client confidences, even though Rule 4.4 of the Code
seems to suggest an exception in its prohibition against attorneys presenting misleading
information to a court.308
The CCBE Code simply ignores the vast disagreement that exists
regarding the limits on the duty of confidentiality, presumably because agreement was
improbable.309
In contrast to some of the shortcuts that the CCBE Code took, either successfully
or not,310 any ethical code drafted for international arbitration must directly confront and resolve
Removed but Barriers Remain, 29 GEO. WASH. J. INT L L. & ECON. 381 (1995) (noting that the CCBEs general
principle on personal publicity does not designate which jurisdictional rule applies when inconsistencies arise
between the rules of the host state and the home state).
306
For a discussion of the contrasting national rules applying to attorney communications marked
confidential, see supra notes 114-15, and accompanying text.
307
308
See id. at 32
309
See id.
For regulation of cross-border practice, conflict of law rules may in fact be appropriate, as long as they
are clear in their application. For example, a conflict of law rule regarding attorney solicitation of clients could state
that the rules of the jurisdiction where the would-be client resides govern if the solicitation would occur in that
jurisdiction. Such a conflict-of-laws rule simply resolves competing claims to prescriptive jurisdiction, to which the
310
81

areas of conflict.311 These areas will undoubtedly be magnified when radically contrasting
systems, such as Zimbabwe,312 the United States,313 China314 and Saudi Arabia 315 get thrown into
the mix.
No matter how profound the differences, however, a code of ethics for international
arbitration will only be useful if it ensures that all participants in an arbitration proceeding are
abiding by the same rules.
In the area of legal ethics, traditional negotiated compromise is unlikely to
produce workable code because negotiators will inevitably come to the project with divergent
assumptions about the functional roles of participants in adjudication.
Using the functional
approach will not obviate the need for negotiation and compromise altogether. It will, however,
force such negotiations to focus on the relationship between role and legal ethics, instead of
jurisdiction which has an interested in protecting the prospective client and regulating activities occurring within its
borders.
311
One possible alternative to drafting a code for international arbitration is to relegate the matter to the
parties, leaving them to choose applicable ethics as they choose substantive law. The pitfalls of this approach are
taken up infra in sub-section 3.
312
See Shalakany, Arbitration and the Third World, supra note 258, at 422-24 (describing special needs of
developing countries in international arbitration).
313
Even though the United States is considered part of the amorphous Western Legal Tradition, [t]he
lawyer, American style, is a unique phenomenon. Goebel, supra note 17, at 520-22 (quoting H. DEVRIES, CIVIL
LAW AND THE A NGLO-A MERICAN LAWYER 7 (1976); W OLFRAM, supra note 76, at 6 ([T]he practices and
philosophies of lawyer practicing in other legal cultures very often bear little resemblance to those of lawyers in the
United States.).
314
See Roderick W. Macneil, Contract in China: Law, Practice, and Dispute Resolution, 38 STAN . L. REV.
303, 327 (1986); RANDALL PEERENBOOM, LAWYERS IN CHINA: OBSTACLES TO INDEPENDENCE AND THE DEFENSE
OF RIGHTS (Lawyers Committee on Human Rights, 1998).
315
See, generally., M. McCary, Bridging Ethical Borders: International Legal Ethics with an Islamic
Perspective, TEX. INT L L.J. 289 (2000) (arguing that debate over cross-border legal practice must address the
cultural and legal concerns of systems in the Middle East and exploring the numerous clashes between Islamic
teaching and modern western legal practice); Azizah Y. al-Hibri, Faith and the Attorney-Client Relationship: A
Muslim Perspective, 66 FORDHAM L. REV. 1131 (1998) (arguing that integrated Muslim view of the world, which
denies the severability of the divine from the secular, limits Muslim lawyers ability to pledge loyalty to client and
may restrict Muslim lawyers ability to engage in some types of representation); Ahmed Sadek El-Kosheri, Is There
a Growing International Arbitration Culture in the Arab-Islamic Juridical Culture?, in INTERNATIONAL DISPUTE
RESOLUTION: TOWARDS AN INTERNATIONAL A RBITRATION CULTURE 47-48 (1998) (noting that, despite the long
history and current popularity of arbitration in Arab nations, the Arab legal community remains hostile toward
transnational arbitration because of biased treatment by Western arbitrators).
82

letting them remain an unacknowledged contest between competing adjudicatory values.
2. The Most Restrictive Approach
An alternative approach, proposed by a noted scholar in the area of international
ethics, is that the most restrictive national ethical norm be chosen as the benchmark norm for
an international code of ethics.316
The theory of the approach is that if the most restrictive
norm is adopted, then compliance with international norms would not offend any nations
domestic ethical norms.
This approach suggeststo take the example of pre-testimony
communication with witnessesthat we could draw a scale and mark as zero as the point at
which perjury is perfectly tolerated and ten as the point representing a complete ban on any pretestimonial communication.
On such a scale, the U.S. rule would presumably be located
somewhere near the four while the German rule somewhere near the nine.
The international
norm, according to this view, should be set at nine or above, so that in complying with the
international norm, all systems rules would be satisfied.
No matter how superficially appealing, the most restrictive approach is flawed
in its conception and unworkable in application.
The approach necessarily begins from the
erroneous premise that professional obligations are the product of bipolar choices between more
and less permissive alternatives. In pictorial terms, it conceives of each ethical norm as existing
on its own linear scale, independent from other norms and from the larger system in which it
operates.
As demonstrated by the functional approach, this conception is wrong.
The
apparently more lackadaisical U.S. approach to pre-testimonial communication with witnesses

316
This proposal has been advanced by Professor Roger Goebel, not in the context of international
arbitration per se, but as a means for developing ethics for cross-border practice. See Goebel, supra note 17, at 52022. The intuitive appeal of this approach is undoubetdly linked to familiar calls for attorneys to adhere to the
highest moral and ethical standards.
83

does not indicate a greater tolerance for perjurious activities. Instead, it reflects the role of the
attorney as gatherer of facts and presenter of evidence and the related need to conduct extrajudicial investigations, including speaking with potential witnesses.
Similarly, the apparently
more relaxed European approach to ex parte communication does not reflect lack of concern
about the possibility that parties might exercise unfair influence on the decision-maker.
It
reflects, instead, the attorneys role as guide to the court in which ex parte communications are
less of a threat and may in fact aid the judge in more efficient decision-making. While the most
restrictive approach has an implicit allure,317 the simplicity of this methodology comes only by
ignoring, at great peril, the complexity of ethical norms and their relationship to the larger
systems of adjudication in which they operate.
3. Law and Economics Approach
Legal ethics has recently been receiving a great deal of attention from the Law
and Economics community in the United States.318
Moreover, economic concerns have
motivated drafting of the CCBE Code and current focus international ethical norms as it has
become apparent that professional licensing can be a barrier to international trade and the free
317
Even the Declaration of Perugia attempted to resort to a most restrictive provision when dealing with
the problematic tension between maintaining client confidences and attorney obligations to disclose unlawful
conduct by a client. See supra note 299 at IV, 3. Notably, when instructing that an attorney should follow the
strictest rule, the Consultative Committee had to go on to explain that is, the rule that offers the best protection
against breach of confidence because the meaning of the term strictest was not self-evident. See id. Notably, this
approach was dropped from the CCBE Code, in part perhaps because this strictest rule approach left attorneys
with no protection should their adherence to the strictest rule get them in professional or criminal trouble in
another jurisdiction.
318
See, e.g., George M. Cohen, Legal Malpractice Insurance, Loss Prevention, and Professional Ethics, 4
CT .INS.L.J. 305 (1997-1998) (presenting comparative economic institutional analysis of legal malpractice
insurance); Richard A. Epstein, The Legal Regulation of Lawyers Conflicts of Interest, 60 FORDHAM L.J. 579
(1992) (presenting economic analysis of conflict of interest rules); Jonathan R. Macey & Geoffrey Miller,
Reflections on Professional Responsibility in a Regulatory State, 63 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1105 (1995) (presenting
economic analysis of rules of professional responsibility); Charles Silver & Lynn Baker, Mass Lawsuits and the
Aggregate Settlement Rule, 32 W AKE FOREST . L. REV. 733 (1997) (presenting economic analysis of professional
responsibility rules regarding aggregate settlement rules).
84

movement of persons and services.319
Based on the undeniable link between ethics and
economic concerns, Law-and-Economics scholars might propose that the best approach to
developing an international code of ethics is to identify the most efficient rule.320
Notwithstanding
correlative
economic
issues
in
attorney
regulation,
using
efficiency as the normative ideal against which to measure competing ethical rules would not
obviate the difficult and substantive questions that confront drafters of an international code of
ethics.
In commercial contexts, efficiency describes the rule that would promote productivity,
reduce transaction costs, increase acceptance in the marketplace and, as a consequence (at least
theoretically), produce increased prosperity for all. 321
Outside of regulation of the commercial
aspects of the legal services market, the object of efficiency is not self-evident.322 Before
determining whether an rule is more or less efficient, the scholar must operationally define the
term: More or less efficient at what? This question can be difficult to answer in a cross-cultural
319
Some are concerned that the World Trade Organization may attack certain ethical rules as barriers to
trade. See Daly, Dichotomy Between Standards and Rules, supra note 6 at 1117.
320
At this point, I am examining what Law and Economics might have to say about the development of the
content of the substantive ethical rules. Part III is also likely to attract interest from Law-and-Economics scholars
(although I use legal process analysis) both because it is based on assessments of comparative institutional
competence and because it proposes tailor-made default rules that are adopted into parties contracts and are subject
to party modification. See Jefferey L. Dunoff & Joel P. Trachtman, Economic Analysis of International Law, 24
Yale. J. Intl Law 1, 45 (1999) (arguing that most U.S. Law and Economics analysis argues for the abolition of most
forms of government regulation of commercial activity and may be most helpful in the international context for its
institutional choice theories); Jonathan R. Macey & Geoffrey Miller, An Economic Analysis of Conflict of Interest
Regulation, 82 IOWA L. REV. 965, 972 (1997) (arguing that, assuming an absence of significant externalities, the
governments role should ordinarily be to supply reasonable gap-filling or default terms that the parties would
likely have agreed to if they had bargained over the issue ex ante.).
321
See Richard Epstein, Law and Economics: Its Glorious Past and Cloudy Future, 64 U. CHI. L. REV.
1167, 1170 (1997). It is no accident that the economic analysis of American ethics has approached ethical issues
through the lens of the market for legal services. When Law and Economics first considered the problem of
professional responsibility, its efforts dealt only with private contracting mechanisms for reducing agency costs. See
George M. Cohen, When Law and Economics Met Professional Responsibility, 67 FORDHAM L. REV. 273, 274
(1998). Even when Law and Economics turned to core legal rules of professional responsibility, its focus was
relatively limited to particular rules. See id. at 275.
322
Even within commercial contexts, the term efficiency suffers from inherent ambiguities that draw into
question the claims of its enthusiasts. See, e.g., GEORGE P. FLETCHER, BASIC CONCEPTS OF LEGAL THOUGHT 156
85

context because of the conflicting goals of different adjudicatory systems.
For example, in
evaluating rules regarding pre-testimonial communication with witnesses, to determine whether

the American or German approach is more or less efficient, the scholar must adopt normative
objectives to define efficiency, such as more efficient at accurate fact-finding or more efficient at
maximizing party participation in proceedings.323 Once down this road, however, the scholar is
in the position of examining what values ethical norms should advance. A Law and Economics
approach might be useful at some level, but only after the value choices for ethics in
international commercial arbitration have already been identified through the functional
approach.
4. The Choice of Laws or Conflict of Laws Approach
Another possibility, which might be considered as an alternative to developing a
new code of ethics for international commercial arbitration, is to treat ethics as a matter to be
resolved either by conflicts of law rules or by a choice of law decision to be made by the parties.
These approaches have some notable forerunners within the international arbitration system
itself.
Parties usually select substantive national law that will govern their dispute.324
In the
absence of such a choice by the parties, arbitrators employ a conflicts-of-law analysis or the
doctrine of lex loci arbitri325 to select one nations laws to govern. Moreover, conflict-of-laws
(1996); Mark G. Kelman, Misunderstanding Social Life: A Critique of the Core Premises of Law and Economics,
33 J. LEGAL EDUC. 274 (1983).
323

See, generally, REISMAN, INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL A RBITRATION, supra note 65, at 691-753.
Notably, however, business managers and their lawyers often compromise on a governing law without giving a great
deal of thought or investing mu ch research into how the chose legal system may affect the outcome of possible
controversies. See William W. Park, National Law and Commercial Justice: Safeguarding Procedural Integrity in
International Arbitration, 63 TUL. L. REV. 647, 659 (1989).
324
325
The lex arbitri is the law of the place where the arbitration occurs. See William W. Park, Lex Loci
Arbitri and International Commercial Arbitration, 32 INT L & COMP . L.Q. 21, 22 (1983).
86

techniques are used in the U.S.s Model Rule 8.5326 and the CCBE Code327 to resolve multijurisdictional conflicts in cross-border practice.
These methods are appealing because they
facilitate identification of a single controlling rule through selection a national ethical regime in
its entirety.
The need to haggle or brood over the content of rules is avoided by simply
transplanting those of a national system. Like other potential approaches, however, the appeal of
a conflict- or choice-of-laws approach is illusory.
Given the unique features of international arbitration, certain national ethical
norms may be particularly inapt if transplanted.
For example, national rules that place
communications from an attorney to a client outside the realm of confidentiality protections may
be pernicious in proceedings that follow an American litigation model with aggressive discovery,
particularly since the discovery of such documents would make attorneys more likely to be
called as witnesses.328
To avoid such problems, the rules chosen must, according to the
functional approach, reflect and facilitate performance of the inter-relational roles assigned to
actors in an adjudicatory setting.
The importance of the fit between ethical norms regulating advocates and the
procedural arrangements of the system in which they are appearing is implicitly acknowledged
326
See Mary C. Daly, Resolving Ethical Conflicts in Multinational PracticeIs Model Rule 8.5 the
Answer, an Answer or No Answer at All?, 36 S. TEX. L. REV. 715 (1995). Model Rule 8.5 attempts to resolve the
often-prickly conflicts a U.S. attorney with a multi-jurisdictional practice may confront.
327
328
In a distinct but related area, arbitrators are distinct from judges in that they are not expected to be a
blank slate but are in fact chosen for the substantive knowledge and they generally continue to practice as part of a
firm. These features of the arbitrator make simply transplanting judicial ethics regarding conflicts of interest
untenable. See, e.g., Ploy Software Intl Inc. v. Su, 880 F. Supp. 1487, 1492-95 (D.Utah 1995) (discussing
complications of applying conflicts rules when small groups of skilled lawyersin this case, specializing in a
relatively small area of the computer industryact as both litigators and mediators) (cited in Carrie Medow Menkel,
The Trouble with the Adversary System in a Post-Modern Multicultural World, 38 W M. & M ARY L. REV. 5, 44
(1996)).
87

by the Model Rules and the CCBE Code. Both codes instruct that with questions pertaining to
conduct before a court in a foreign jurisdiction, the rules of the applicable tribunal govern.329
Even though it is unlikely that these rules were intended to apply to international arbitration,330
they are premised on an assumption that adjudicatory tribunals do have (or should have) their
own ethical norms and that attorneys appearing before them should be bound by them. 331
Particularly staunch advocates of party choice may insist that the participants in
arbitration are able to undertake the analysis necessary match the ethical rules with the
procedures they have chosen. Parties in arbitration are repeat players who presumably have the
resources to investigate and select the national ethical norms that they want to govern their
arbitral proceedings.332
The sophisticated character of these parties has lead some scholars to
speculate that elaborate negotiations produce sophisticated arbitration agreements that are
designed
circumnavigate
procedures.333
onerous
national
laws
and
map
out
customized
adjudicatory
In spite of significant literature that predicts that repeat players will bargain for
procedures that optimize their strategic positions, such opportunism in drafting has not, at least
329
See Terry, Introduction to the European Communitys Legal Ethics, supra note 10, at 19 (CCBE Code);
Roger Goebel, The Liberalization Of Interstate Legal Practice In The European Union: Lessons For The United
States?, 34 INT L LAWYER 307 (2000) (same), .
330
It is not clear whether or how Model Rule 8.5 applies in arbitration and, as noted above, supra, note 6,
Rule 8.5 expressly disavows application in the international context. Vagts, International Legal Ethics, supra note
59, at 379.
331
CCBE Rule 4.1, which requires lawyers who appear before a court or tribunal in a Member State to
comply with the rules of conduct applied in that court, is analogous to Rule 3.4(c) of the Model Rules, which
prohibits knowing disobedience of rules of a tribunal, except for an open refusal based on an assertion that no rated
obligation exists. See Terry, Introduction to the European Communitys Legal Ethics, supra note 10, at 36-37.
Similarly, the CCBE Code permits the tribunal exercising jurisdiction to determine the level of ex parte
communications that are permissible, which implies an expectation that tribunals can and do regulate such aspects of
attorney conduct.
332
See Marc Galanter, Why the Haves Com Out Ahead: Speculations on the Limits of Legal Change, 9
LAW & SOCY REV. 95, 125 fig.3 (1974).
333
See Andrew T. Guzman, Arbitrator Liability: Reconciling Arbitration and Mandatory Rules, DUKE L.J.
1279 (2000) (arguing that parties agree to arbitrate for the specific purpose of avoiding mandatory national laws and
that arbitrators have incentives to disregard national law in favor of the parties agreement).
88

yet, become the practice in drafting arbitration agreements. Often, arbitration agreements are an
afterthought thrown into a contract by corporate attorneys who have little experience with
arbitration and are hoping that the possibility of a dispute is distant and improbable.334
Even
when experienced negotiators are involved, the time-cost of negotiating individual rules is
prohibitive.
As a consequence, arbitration agreements almost never include provisions regarding
procedure335 and are less likely to include more particularized provisions regarding ethics. 336
With regard to rules of procedure and evidence, this problem has been solved by
the IBA Supplemental Rules Governing the Presentation and Reception of Evidence in
International Commercial Arbitration, which is a prefabricated set of default rules that parties
can incorporate into their contract. For the same reasons that party autonomy is served better by
the IBA Supplemental Rules than it is by the opportunity to negotiate individual rules, a
prefabricated code specially tailored to international arbitration will serve parties interests better
than permission to choose one nations law.337
The functional approach is a coherent
334
Other factor that keep rampant opportunism in check may be that, unlike consumer or employment
arbitration in the U.S., the parties are equally matched. For numerous, often humorous, examples that of poorly
drafted arbitration clauses, see CRAIG, INTERNATIONAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE A RBITRATION, supra note 101, at
422. While undoubtedly selected from a large sample pool, in my experience, even arbitration clauses drafted by
Fortune 100 companies suffer from significant defects and could not accurately be described as a anything
approaching a masterful orchestration of the elements of dispute resolution.
335
See Holzman Balancing the Need for Certainty and Flexibility, supra note 150, at 10 (citing study by
Stephen Bond (former ICC President) of nearly 500 arbitration clauses submitted to the ICC, in which only one
referred to specific procedures).
336
Leaving selection of ethical rules to choice-of-law analysis has the added problem that, in the absence of
express choice by the parties, it would be left to the unpredictable and potentially detrimental choice of law rules:
The usual rule that conflict of laws rules of the forum determine the applicable law may be of
doubtful validity when the place of arbitration bears no relationship to the parties or the subject
matter of the dispute. Furthermore, arbitrators from different nations and with different legal
training and traditions may find it difficult to agree on the conflict of laws rules that should be
applied. That difficulty is compounded by the unsettled state of conflict of laws rules in may legal
systems.
Hans Smit, The Future of International Commercial Arbitration: A Single Transnational Institution?, 25 COLUM. J.
TRANSNAT L L. 1, 22-23 (1986).
337
Even though under the functional approach ethical norms are linked to procedural rules, this approach
does not necessarily require that arbitration forego procedural flexibility by adopting specific procedural rules. Just
89

methodology that can identify and shape norms for such a code, and the proposal in Part III
suggests a mechanism by which such a specialized code can be easily incorporated into parties
agreements.
as the IBA evidentiary rules are modifiable by the parties, I am proposing default ethical rules, which are set to the
fundamental aims of international commercial arbitration but can be modified by the parties. See infra notes 367- ,
and accompanying text.
90

D. The Functional Approach as a Prescriptive Tool

So far, this Article has used the functional approach to illuminate the link
between ethics and role and the consequent differences among national ethical regimes.
The
functional approach can also be a prescriptive tool for developing ethical norms for international
arbitration.
While I propose that actual drafting of ethical codes be undertaken by various
arbitral institutions, this Section will illustrate the methodology for developing those norms.
1. The Functional Approach in International Arbitration
As a prescriptive methodology, the aim of the functional approach is not to
resolve conflicts between different national ethical norms, but to develop norms that are suited to
the international commercial arbitration system.
To that end, the functional approach requires
identification of the inter-relational roles of actors in the international commercial arbitration

system and selection of ethical norms consistent with these roles.
This task, in turn, requires
examination of the procedural arrangements and underlying cultural values of the international
commercial arbitration system.
This prescription seems difficult to follow because there are few defined
procedural rules in international arbitration.
Institutional arbitral rules only provide skeletal
procedures for commencing arbitration and selecting arbitrators.338 Beyond these basics, arbitral
rules are generally silent with regard to the actual proceedings, including such fundamentals as
whether hearings will be held. How can these sketchy outlines of procedural rules guide us in
91

understanding the role of attorneys in arbitration and the ethical obligations that are consistent
with that role? It is similarly perplexing to contemplate how to ascertain the cultural values339
of the international arbitration community.
International commercial arbitration exists between
cultural boundaries and is intended to fuse multiple, diverse legal traditions.
It is an ad hoc
system of dispute resolution, without geographic borders or a discernable citizenry.
Indeed,
dynamic changes in the ranks of participants are one of the major sources of pressure for
development of an established ethical regime.
How can the cultural values of this amorphous
system inform development of ethical norms?

Notwithstanding the open texture of the international commercial arbitration
system, there is substantial guidance for the development of ethics. While there are few defined
procedures, there are the regularly used hybridized procedures,340 which I will demonstrate
below reflect an appropriate balance of power between parties and arbitrators that in turn suggest
a range of possibilities for the content of ethical norms in arbitration.
Moreover, even in the
absence of a defined social, political or geographic unit, the normative goals of the international
arbitration system are relatively well defined.
As described in Part I, international commercial
arbitration aims to provide neutral and effective means of dispute resolution that allows the
parties substantial autonomy.341 Based on these normative goals and the hybridized procedures,
the functional approach can be used to derive ethical norms for the international commercial
arbitration system.
338
See John M. Townsend, Overview and Comparison of International Arbitration Rules, 624 PLI/Lit. 817
339
For a definition of cultural values, see supra note 255.
340

See supra Sections I.C.1&2.
(2000).
341
92

Just as the role of the judge was the starting point in analyzing in national
systems, the role of the arbitral tribunal is the starting point for analyzing the roles of players in
the international arbitration system.
The most striking feature of arbitrators is that, as a
consequence of the balance struck by the New York Convention, they are vested with what
amounts to broad, virtually unreviewable decision-making power.342
contrast to their judicial counterparts.343
This power is striking in
Even clear mistakes of law in arbitral awards are
virtually immune from appellate review.344
Arbitrator decisions cannot draw legislative
responses that, in national systems, are used to counterbalance judicial activism. Other types of
indirect controls that constrain national judgessuch as pre-established rules of evidence and
procedureare often left to the arbitrators to decide. Finally, unlike judicial decisions, there are
no minimum requirements for the form of arbitral awards, which means awards are also
insulated from the constraining force of public scrutiny.345
Arbitrators are endowed with these extensive powers to ensure that their decisions
342
Arbitrator discretion in applying the law takes both legitimate and illicit forms. Justifiably, a great deal
of discretion derives from ambiguities about the proper law to be applied, including the proper rules for choosing the
proper law. See Park, National Law and Commercial Justice, supra note 23, at 667. Indeed, arbitrators must walk
something of a tightrope between applying the parties chosen law and avoiding offense to mandatory law of a
jurisdiction that might be able to refuse enforcement. It is also possible for parties to enhance arbitrator discretion.
If the parties, instead of a body of national law, choose the flexible lex mercatoria or customary law merchant, or
an equitable doctrine such as amiable compositeur, which permits arbitrators to resolve the matter based on notions
of fundamental fairness. Another, less legitimate, form of discretion comes from the fact that arbitral decisions are
not subject to substantive review.
343
In continental proceedings, the judge enjoys significant fact-finding power, but See COMPARATIVE
LAW : CASES TEXT -M ATERIALS 472 (Rudolf B. Schlesinger, et al., eds., 6th Edition) (1998). In the United States,
lower court legal decisions are subject to de novo review on appeal and factual determinations, while afforded
significant deference, are also subject to appeal.
344
Comparison of the relative power of judges vis --vis arbitrators in this context is limited to the confines
of a specific case because arbitrators are only appointed for a single case. At a more systematic level, the power of
arbitrators is more circumscribed than judges because their decisions are not binding in other cases and their
jurisdiction is dependent on the existence of national courts.
345
Public scrutiny of judicial opinions acts as a constraining force on judges. See A LEXANDER BICKEL,
THE LEAST DANGEROUS BRANCH, 69-70 (1962) (describing how courts are constrained by a range of social and
cultural factors, including public opinion); see also GERALD N. ROSENBERG, THE HOLLOW HOPE (1991). By
93

are neutral (independent of national courts) and effective (generally enforceable), but party
autonomy is another important pillar under girding the system. Parties exercise control through
their ability to draft arbitration agreements, to select arbitrators, and to agree upon procedures.
These powers, however, have significant practical and (because they end when arbitral
proceedings are beginning) temporal limitations.346 If parties are limited to these powers, once
the arbitration begins, party control would virtually cease.
The hybridized procedures that are habitually used by parties in modern
international arbitration practice347 ameliorate this problem. By vesting parties and their counsel
(not arbitrators) with substantial control over the fact-finding process,348 the hybrid procedures
create a role for parties counsel that counterbalances the vast power arbitrators have in the final
decision.349
They establish inter-relational roles that reflect and reinforce the tri-partite
normative values of the system, which in turn the contours of the ven diagram that represents the
competing obligations on attorneys.
The considerably expanded discretion an arbitrator has in
contrast, some arbitral institutions, such as the AAA recommend that arbitrators not provide the parties with a
reasoned award that may provide a basis for future challenge.
346
Parties often select governing law and place of arbitration in their agreement, but rarely agree on
procedures in during the drafting process. While parties theoretically retain the power to agree to procedural rules
that will control proceedings as a practical matter, after the dispute has arisen and as the parties are preparing the
adjudicatory strategies, agreement on procedures is difficult to find. See Lucy F. Reed, Drafting Arbitration
Clauses, 648 PLI/Lit 607 (2001).
347

See supra Section I.B.3.
349
See supra Part I.B. As a historical matter, the hybrid practices commonly used in arbitration are
probably attributable to a range of forces. On the one hand, they may represent what experience has taught are the
most effective means of compromising between competing interests among participants, or the product of
competitive pressures within the market of international commercial arbitration, amplified by the entrance of
American lawyers on the scene. See DEZALAY & GARTH, DEALING IN VIRTUE, supra note 55, at 23 (describing the
Americanization of arbitral proceedings and attributing it to the symbolic capital brought to the process by
American attorneys). Whatever the historical source of these hybridized procedures, they have the effect of
creating a balance, which is probably at least part of what has led to their universal acceptability. This need to
counterbalance arbitrator power is also evidenced in the general formalization of the international arbitral process,
348
94

applying the law suggests that parties in arbitration appeal to that discretion, while the relatively
indeterminate nature of arbitration emphasizes the importance of strategy.
On the other hand,
international arbitrators are at once presumed to have more specialized industry knowledge than
judges and less experience and support resources (in the form of clerks, libraries and formal legal
training, particularly if they were trained in a system different from the law they are being asked
to apply).
Moreover, while the open texture of arbitration suggests that attorneys will need to
actively guide parties so that they can make intelligent decisions, it also means that international
attorneys have much more power and influence in the system than they do in domestic litigation.
Together, these features suggest that the attorneys sphere of obligation to the client must be
expanded over that of the classic civil law system, but not nearly to the dimensions of the U.S.
system.
As a consequence of augmenting the sphere of obligations to the client over those
of the typical civil law system, the importance of attorney-client communications is expanded
and the logic of confidential communications between opposing counsel is less compelling.
When attorneys are engaging in lobbying and strategizing, instead of acting in a more
collaborative role, ex parte communications are less tolerable.350 On the other hand, given the
limits of post-award review and the probability that arbitrators are not trained in the specific law
being applied, efforts to lobby must be more tightly constrained than they are in the United
particularly the reduction of the hybrid procedures to a formal, structured body of rules and the calls for publication
of arbitral awards.
350
As noted above, see supra notes 234-35,and accompanying text, the American tolerance for ex parte
communication with arbitrators may reflect not so much the role of attorneys, but the role of arbitrators as parties
advocates on U.S. arbitral tribunals. Finalizing attorney ethical norms regarding ex parte contact will therefore also
require examination and clarification of the arbitrators role. Certainly one factor to consider is that, even if the risk
of taint from ex parte communications is lower in international arbitration than in U.S. litigation, the nonappealability of arbitral awards makes the potential consequences dire if that risk is realized.
95

States. To this end, it has been suggested that attorneys in arbitration should have a higher duty
of disclosure to the arbitral tribunal than is required in the U.S. litigation system.351
In the
specific example of pre-testimonial communication, written witness statements necessarily imply

that counsel are piecing together their clients case and the availability of cross-examination
requires some minimum degree of witness preparation, such as informing the witness about
likely challenges to her credibility.352
Any ethical norm regarding attorney contact with
witnesses must therefore accommodate some communication.

While it is possible here to provide the general contours of a code of ethics for
international commercial arbitration, the fashioning of particular rules will require more detailed
study of not only arbitral institutions and players, but also of national ethical norms that will be
displaced. In the final Part, I propose that this study be undertaken by arbitral institutions so that,
as discussed in the following Section, that drafting process can take account of the various forms
of international arbitration and the differing the roles and normative goals present in those forms.
2. Differentiating Among Arbitral Regimes
While it is possible to discuss generally the elemental goals of arbitration, they are
not always adopted in the same combination as the prototypal arbitration discussed so far.
Consequently, the hybridized procedures are not always followed.
For example, occasionally
parties still agree to have the arbitrator act as amiable compositeur,353 which necessarily means
an expansion of arbitrator power and would be consistent with a diminished role for parties and
351
See C. Thomas Mason III, Lawyers Duties of Candor Toward the Arbitral Tribunal, 998 PLI/CORP . 59
(1997); see also Deborah L. Rhode, Institutionalizing Ethics, CASE W. L. REV. 665, 707-09 (1994) (arguing for
higher disclosure obligations in U.S. litigation).
352
See Damaka, Evidentiary Transplants, supra note 167, at 847 (arguing that if civilian systems
introduced cross-examination fairness would require at least some minimum degree of witness preparation).
96

their counsel in the gathering of facts, bringing of motions and presentation of evidence. In other
instances, departure from the hybridized procedures is institutionalized, meaning that particular
arbitral institutions, particularly trade arbitration institutions, have adjusted the balance between
the roles of the arbitrators and parties and their counsel to suit their unique clientele.
One good example is the arbitration regime adopted by the Liverpool Cotton
Association (LCA).354 The LCA provides expedited adjudication of a narrowly defined range
of disputes that arise out of contracts for the sale and delivery of cotton, most frequently
involving disagreements over the quality of cotton delivered.355
In proceedings under the LCA
Rules, an institutional board (not the parties) appoints two arbitrators who are knowledgeable
about the industry to inspect the cotton in question. If the two fail to agree, the third arbitrator
acts as an umpire. The role of the parties is usually marginalsubmitting samples of the cotton
in disputeand the control of arbitrators expansive. The arbitral regime includes in its structure
a nine-member Official Appeal Committee, which provides some control over arbitrators.356
This appellate body avoids resort to national courts relied on in standard international
commercial arbitration.
This system of intentionally diminished party control and increased
arbitrator power in fact-finding may suggest that the ven diagram drawn to represent the relative
spheres of obligation in this context bear more similarity to civil law systems, with a decreased
sphere of obligation to the client to reflect the diminished role of attorneys in presenting the
353
See supra note 35.

The Liverpool Cotton Association has a venerable history and is widely regarded as the institution that
inspired trade associations throughout England to establish arbitration mechanisms. See J. COHEN, COMMERCIAL
A RBITRATION AND THE LAW 19-20 (1918).
355
See Stephen Craig Pirrong, The Efficient Scope of Private Transactions-Cost-Reducing Institutions: The
Successes and Failures of Commodity Exchanges, 24 J. LEGAL STUD . 229, 235 (1995).
356
See http://www.lca.org.uk/PDF/Rules.pdf
354
97

clients case.
In a contrasting example, in international arbitration under the auspices of the
International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), party autonomy and
control arguably receive a higher priority than in standard commercial arbitration.
ICSID
arbitration, which is administered by the World Bank, is a system designed to accommodate

nation-states as parties.357 The unique need for deference to parties that are sovereign nations,
and corresponding limitation in the role of the arbitrator, is evident in several features of the
ICSID arbitration system.
For example, ICSID arbitration rules limit arbitrators power to
choose the applicable law358 and, under recent and somewhat questionable precedents, require
automatic reversal by the ICSID appellate panel any time there has any minor technical defect in
the award.359 In the ICSID arbitration system, the role of the advocate is weighted much more
heavily with client interests than obligations to the tribunal, perhaps suggesting that the ven
diagram illustrating ethical obligations in this system should be closer to the American model
than that of standard international commercial arbitration.
These and other specialized applications in international arbitration highlight the
need for flexibility in any regime for ethical regulation. If a code of ethics cannot accommodate
the changing and varied forms of international arbitration, the value of a specialized code is
diminished.
The project of the next Part is to describe a regime that can accommodate these
357
See REISMAN, SYSTEMS OF CONTROL, supra note 57, at 48-49.

Unlike other arbitral rules, which permit arbitrators to choose the governing law in the absence of party
agreement, Article 42(1) the ICSID rules mandates that, in the absence of party agreement, the arbitrators apply the
law of the Contracting State party to the dispute (including its conflict of laws) and such rules of international law
as may be applicable. See REISMAN, INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL A RBITRATION, supra note 190, at 258.
359
The adoption of this hair-trigger rule appears to have been motivated, at least in part, in an effort to
limit the discretion involved in appellate review, but it arguably also aims at constraining the original arbitral
358
98

shifting needs, while still providing clear guidance.
E. Conclusion
In addition to the substantive insights it holds for developing ethics for
international arbitration, the functional approach demonstrates the overwhelming importance of
comparative analysis to the development of international legal rules.360
The process of
comparing reveals not only the true extent of similarities and differences among systems, but
also the reasons for those differences. In the absence of comparison, the link between procedure,
adjudicatory values and professional legal ethics would remain obscured by the myopia of our
limited cultural perspective.361 Discerning the anatomy, not just the external form, of legal rules
will facilitate the production of international norms that not only appear at a superficial level to
resolve conflicts, but that actually serve the needs of the international arbitration community.
III.
Making Ethical Norms Binding and Enforceable in International Arbitration

Up until this point, this Article has addressed the means of developing the content
of ethical norms for use in international commercial arbitration.
This Part now turns to the
question of who will undertake that task and how the other necessary sub-tasks will be
tribunal. For a discussion of the problems caused by this hair-trigger rule, and efforts to reform it, see REISMAN,
SYSTEMS OF CONTROL, supra note 57, at 57-83.
360
As Professor Carozza explains in the area of international human rights: comparative analysis can help
forge common understandings by giving specific content to the scope of broad, underdetermined international
norms, but it can also reveal the contingency and particularity of the political and moral choices inherent in the
specification and expansion of legal norms that are too easily assumed to be universal. See Paolo G. Carozza,
Uses and Misuses of Comparative Law in International Human Rights: Some Reflections on the Jurisprudence of
the European Court of Human Rights, 73 NOTRE DAME L. REV. 1217, 1219 (1998). For further reading on the use
of comparative law in international lawmaking, see David Kennedy, New Approaches to Comparative Law:
Comparativism and International Governance, 1997 UTAH L. REV. 545.
361
See Daly, Dichotomy Between Standards and Rules, supra note 6, at 1149; Terry, Introduction to the
European Communitys Legal Ethics, supra note 10, at 47.
99

accomplished.362 The first Section of this Part undertakes the constructive project of proposing a
regime for integrating into the system of international commercial arbitration ethical norms
derived from the methodology proposed in Part II. Because the proposed regime contemplates
significant new powers for arbitrators and would permit contractual modification of arbitral
ethical norms, it implicates deeper concerns about the limits of private adjudication and the
government monopoly on rule-making in the realm of professional legal ethics. These concerns
will be taken up in Section B.
A. A Regime for Implementation and Enforcement

Parties consensually bind themselves to arbitrate disputes pursuant to rules that
are usually administered by arbitral institutions, and national courts enforce arbitral agreements
or awards rendered by arbitral tribunals, pursuant to the New York Convention.
Attorney
conduct, meanwhile, is regulated at a national level not only by ethical codes enforced by local
bar associations, but by a range of other institutions,363 including civil and criminal statutes,364
malpractice claims, market pressures and influence from peers.365
In this web of integrated
institutions, there are a number of possible ways that ethical norms could be promulgated and
enforced. This Section proposes a regime that would integrate ethical regulation into the existing
362
These sub-tasks include making ethical norms binding on the parties and their counsel, interpreting the
rules, detecting violations, determining guilt for violations, fashioning remedies and sanctions, and enforcing those
sanctions. See Schneyer, The Regulation of Lawyers, supra note 110, at 38.
363
See id. at 35-36.
364
For example, in the United States, much conduct that is regulated in ethical codes is also regulated by
statute. See, e.g., CAL. BUS. & PROF. CODE 6068(e) (West 1990) (prohibiting an attorney from disclosing client
confidences after representation has ended).
365
For analysis of how norms that are not reflected in formal jurisprudence can still effectively regulate
behavior, see W. Michael Reisman, Lining Up: The Microlegal System of Queues, 54 U. CIN. L. REV. 417 (1985);
W. Michael Reisman, Looking, Staring and Glaring: Microlegal Systems and the Public Order, 12 DENV. J. INT L
L. & POLY 165 (1983); see also ROBERT C. ELLICKSON, ORDER W ITHOUT LAW : HOW NEIGHBORS SETTLE
DISPUTES 4-6, 137-55 (1991).
100

framework of the international arbitration system and preserve the balance inherent in that
system.
1. Arbitral Institutions as Promulgators
If the aim of an ethical code for international commercial arbitration is to tailor
ethical obligations to the features of the arbitral proceedings, the entities in the best position to
formulate the specific rules are the arbitral institutions themselves, meaning for example the
ICC, the LCA, ICSID, the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, and VENCA. Many of the same
reasons for why ethical rule making in the United States is left to bar associations and the
judiciary (as opposed to ordinary legislative processes) support entrusting rulemaking in this
context to arbitral institutions (as opposed to the treaty process or national institutions).366
As the drafters and administrators of arbitral rules, which regulate the initiation
and general conduct of arbitration, arbitral institutions have specialized knowledge of those rules
and their functions,367 as well as the most direct experience in dealing with the ethical issues that
366
In the international context, there is no obvious counterpart to the local bar associations, which in most
Western Countries assume primary responsibility for regulating attorney conduct. As discussed earlier, the IBA
Code of Ethics is more a general list of professional maxims than a code to guide attorney conduct and the IBA is a
voluntary organization, not a licensing body. See supra notes 242-44, and accompanying text.
367
Although they are usually silent with regard to the specific course of arbitral proceedings (i.e., whether
there will be hearings, the form and procedures for submitting evidence, etc.), every set of arbitral rules includes
some basic procedural rules, such as those prescribing the procedures for submitting initial pleadings and appointing
of arbitrators. These fundamental procedural rules are, however, default rules, meaning that they are presumed to be
the rules that would have been negotiated, were the costs of negotiating arms -length for every contingency
sufficiently low and which can be changed through party agreement. See, e.g., Alan Scott Rau, Contracting Out of
the Arbitration Act, 8 A M. REV. INT L A RB. 225, 248 (1997) (arguing that the FAA is merely a set of default rules
intended to reflect the traditional historical understanding concerning the binding effect of arbitral awards); Rau &.
Sherman, supra note 170, at 89 & n.4 (arguing that silence in arbitral rules and national arbitration legislation set
certain default rules). For further discussion on the nature of default rules in contract, see generally Ian Ayres &
Robert Gertner, Filling Gaps in Incomplete Contracts: An Economic Theory of Default Rules, 99 YALE L.J. 87, 97100 (1989) (discussing allocation of contractual default rules).
101

arise in arbitration.368
Given their direct financial interest in attracting parties to their
institution,369 they have a strong incentive to select rules that will ensure the integrity of
arbitrations conducted under the auspices of their institution.370
As a consequence, arbitral
institutions have an institutional competence superior to that of local bar associations or national
courts in knowing which ethical norms will comport with their institutional rules.371
Vesting rule-making authority in arbitral institutions will also satisfy the need to
preserve both the independence of the legal profession and the independence of the arbitral
system.
In the U.S., the judiciary and the legal profession are charged with rule-making
authority to ensure their independence from the other political branches.
If ethical rules were
enacted in treaty form like the CCBE Code, they would, under U.S. constitutional process, be a
product of legislative and executive decision, which, again under U.S. conceptions, could cast a
shadow on the independence of the legal profession. 372
Moreover, arbitral practice must be
insulated from national institutions. If enacted through a treaty, an arbitral code of ethics would
become binding on parties though national legislative enactment and national institutions would
368
Some institutions have direct experience in evaluating ethics-based complaints against arbitrators. For
example, the ICC Rules provide that complaints of alleged misconduct by arbitrators be submitted in writing to the
Secretary General of the Court of Arbitration, with a statement specifying the factual grounds for challenging the
arbitrator. If the ICC Court accepts the challenge the Court would then replace the arbitrator. See CRAIG,
INTERNATIONAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE A RBITRATION, supra note 101, at 13.06 p. 235.
369
See Drahozal, Commercial Norms, supra note 9, at 95.

Their interest in the integrity of the legal process is often pointed to as one of the reasons why judges, as
opposed to elected legislatures, is cited as one of the justifications for the unusual role of the judiciary in ethical
rule-making.
371
See supra Part II.D.2. for a discussion of how the arbitral rules of different institutions might alter the
ethical norms they produce.
370
372
At least in the U.S., this shift of rule-making authority to other branches would be objectionable as it
would undermine the independence of the legal profession.
102

be charged with primary responsibility for enforcement.373
Having local bar associations or
courts inject their evaluations of attorney conduct into arbitration proceedings would bring
national institutions into arbitral proceedings in a way that the New York Convention was
designed to prevent.
Moreover, if a single set of ethical norms is engraved in treaty form, they would
not be able to respond to the varied and dynamic needs of the parties to international commercial
arbitration.374
For example, the drafters of the treaty may, as suggested in Part II, adopt an
international ethical norm that permits some forms of witness communication based on an
assumption that arbitrations commonly adopt hybridized procedures.375
Meanwhile, if instead of
opting for the hybridized procedures, parties in a particular arbitration adopt procedures modeled
after the German system, with arbitrators controlling the questioning of witnesses and no real
cross-examination, the rule adopted by the treaty would be awkward, if not counterproductive.376
For these reasons, the institution best suited to promulgate ethical norms for international
commercial arbitration is to assign the task to arbitral institutions.
2. Arbitral Rules as Implementers
The determination of who will promulgate the new code of ethics for international
373
When nations accede to the New York Convention, they usually implement it through adoption into
their domestic law. For example, in the United States the provisions of the New York Convention are incorporated
into the provisions of the FAA. See Ostrowski & Shany, Chromalloy, supra note at 29.
374
For a discussion on the importance of flexibility and party autonomy in arbitration, see supra Part I.B.3.
Theoretically, it is possible to promulgate in treaty form a set of ethical rules that is general enough not to do great
collide too violently with procedural choices (for example leaving including multiple options) and that can be
contractually modified. The question becomes, though, whether a document so general and so flexible is really a
treaty or whether there is anything to be gained by putting it into treaty form.
375
See supra Parts I.B.1. & II.B.

Similarly, a single code of ethics would not be flexible enough to accommodate the variations in
purposes and approaches of various arbitral institutions. See supra Part II.D. For precisely these same reasons,
376
103

commercial arbitration portends answers to many other questions about how the rules will be
promulgated and enforced.
If arbitral institutions are developing the ethical norms, the obvious
method for putting them into practice is to incorporate them into or append them onto existing
arbitral rules.
When parties agree to submit disputes to a particular arbitral institution or
according to the rules of a particular institution, the arbitral rules, and by extension the new
ethical rules, will become incorporated by reference into the parties contract.377
Incorporating
ethical rules into the parties contract has two important consequences. First, like other contract
terms (including arbitral rules), arbitral ethics would be modifiable by the parties, at least within
certain limitations that will be taken up later.378
Parties will have an opportunity to modify the
default ethical norms either at the time the underlying contract is drafted or, as often happens
with procedural rules, early in the arbitral proceedings.
This approach preserves the goal of
party autonomy, which would be lost if arbitral rules were set in treaty form, while also assuring
continued neutrality (by getting the parties playing by the same rules) and effectiveness (by
providing guidance and measurement functions).
This power to modify is necessary if ethical
norms are to provide meaningful guidance when parties can contractually modify the procedural
arrangements that affect the application of ethical norms.
The other important consequence of making ethical rules part of the parties
contract, is that, like the terms of the arbitration agreement, ethical rules will become separate
most efforts to develop more standardized rules of procedural and evidence for international arbitration have
intentionally eschewed the treaty as an implementing device.
377
See Hans Smit, A-National Arbitration, 63 TUL. L. REV. 629, 631 (1989). For example, a typical
arbitration clause choosing ICC arbitration would state The parties agree that any dispute arising out of on in
connection with this agreement shall be settled by binding arbitration according to the Rules of the International
Chamber of Commerce.
378
For a discussion of the limitations on the parties power to modify, see infra section III.B.1.
104

contractual obligations, breach of which can give rise to separate claims for liability.379
This
contractual nature of arbitral ethical rules will suggest mechanisms for enforcement that treat
breaches similar to other violations of the arbitration agreement.
3. Arbitrators as Enforcers
Another necessary innovation required for effective regulation of attorneys in
international arbitration is that arbitrators must be empowered to impose sanctions for
misconduct that occurs during the proceedings. This sub-section will address the need for such a
power, leaving for the latter section of this Part discussion of the potential opposition to such a
power.
In comparison to national bar associations, arbitrators have superior institutional
competence to act as the first line of enforcement.
Like their judicial counterparts, arbitrators
enjoy certain information advantages because of their direct role in the arbitral process.380
During the ordinary course of proceedings, arbitrators have an opportunity to observe and
evaluate an attorneys conduct in context.381 Moreover, arbitrators have a stake in the integrity
of the process.
Arbitrators develop reputations in part based on their ability to control
proceedings and render fair and expedient results.
These reputations will affect whether
arbitrators are selected to serve on future panels, which means arbitrators have a strong incentive
379
It has been suggested that the agreement to arbitrate is, in effect, an agreement to comply with the
arbitrators decision whether or not the arbitrator applies the law. See Ware, Privatizing Law through Arbitration,
supra note 187, at 711. This is something of an overstatement in that there is no claim or cause of action for failure
to comply with an arbitrators award, although arguable there is one for breach of the arbitral agreement. If the
parties agreed that to abide by an arbitral award, the agreement would be more akin to a confession of judgment
than an arbitration agreement.
380
See Wilkins, Who Should Regulate Lawyers, supra note 78, at 835 (describing the benefits of having
disciplinary mechanisms integrated in the areas in which lawyers work).
381
See id.
105

to protect the integrity of proceedings against attorney misconduct.382
There are also practical considerations. National bar associations may be a viable
recourse for clients of a misbehaving attorney, but in an adjudicatory context, the most probable
victim of misconduct is the opposing party and its counsel.383 Even in domestic settings, it is
rare that opposing parties lodge complaints with bar authorities, in part because of the virtually
non-existent possibility of recovering compensation for their efforts.384 When the burden on the
opposing party involves the added difficulty and expense of lodging a complaint with a foreign
bar association, the potential for viable regulation is dramatically less.385 On the other hand, the
meaningful threat of penalties may have a deterrent effect on the behavior of attorneys. 386
In addition to the institutional advantages they have over national bar
associations, arbitrators are also superior to national courts. If national courts were the first-line
regulators against misconduct, there is the risk that ethical regulation could interfere with the
international arbitrations neutrality, which derives from its isolation from national courts.387
There are essentially two ways national courts could become involved. Either the national courts
382
It must be acknowledged that the incentives may also operate in the reverse, with arbitrators avoiding
sanctioning counsel they think might be likely to bring future business their way. Because international arbitrations
most often match two large international companies, this potential counter-incentive is less likely to be a problem in
the international setting than in domestic arbitration, which often pits individual plaintiffs against large companies.
Indeed, in domestic arbitration, the need for a sanction power for arbitrators is less compelling and it may only
enhance the already perverted incentive structure encountered by plaintiffs arbitrating against repeat players.
383
See Wilkins, Who Should Regulate Lawyers, supra note 78, at 835-43.
In the U.S., bar associates rarely impose fines that compensate complainants. Deborah L. Rhode,
Institutionalizing Ethics, CASE W. L. REV. 665, 705 (1994).
384
385
For a respectable dissenting opinion, see Abel, Transnational Law Practice, supra note 63, at 762-63
(1994) (arguing that victims of misconduct are capable of seeking out bar review boards even in foreign countries).
386
In this way, ethical duties in international commercial arbitration are like other duties in international
law. See Myres S. McDougal & W. Michael Reisman, The Prescribing Function in the World Constitutive Process:
How International Law is Made, in INTERNATIONAL LAW ESSAYS 355, 377 (Myres S. McDougal & W. Michael
Reisman eds., 1981) (question is whether duty is viewed as authoritative by those to whom it is addressed and . . .
its audience concludes that the prescriber . . . intends to and, indeed, can make it controlling.).
387
See supra Section I.B.1.
106

in the situs jurisdiction could be called on to intervene during the proceedings, as they do in
some instances for provisional remedies, or the courts of the enforcement jurisdiction could
consider misconduct during enforcement proceedings, as possible grounds for setting aside or
refusing to enforce the arbitral award. Both of these potential choices are problematic.
With regard to courts in the situs jurisdiction, the most significant problem is the
potential for delay. Apart from the problems of potential abuse, the delay and disruption could
be significant.
Unlike provisional remedies, which can be sought through expedited procedures
and while arbitral proceedings continue, national court review of misconduct will not be as easily
severed from proceedings and is less likely to benefit from expedited review.388 Many questions
of misconduct in the adversarial context are bound up with proceedings on the merits. Did the
attorney improperly withhold information that was required to be produced?
Did the attorney
make a false statement to the tribunal? If arbitral tribunals must remit these questions to national
courts, hold their proceedings in abeyance and then revise their findings based on those judicial
determination, arbitral decision-making integrity will be undermined.
Resort to national courts of the enforcement jurisdiction would be an even more
problematic choice.
Such review would be partial at best and, when available, would reduce
ethical enforcement to a zero-sum game.
Under the New York Convention, aggrieved parties
would only be able to raise challenges to the most egregious types of misconduct. In response to
proof of such egregious misconduct, the only remedy national courts could offer would be
refusal to enforce the award. Aside from the fact that this procedure could only redress the most
extreme and egregious types of misconduct, it could also only redress misconduct by the winning
107

party. 389
In sum, national courts are neither well-suited to the task of evaluating and regulating
behavior that occurred in arbitration, nor well-positioned to be effective in sanctioning

misconduct.
Meanwhile, arbitrators enjoy a superior institutional competence and have self-
interested incentives to exercise it.

4. International Attorneys as Adherents and Moral Entrepreneurs390
Incorporating ethical norms into arbitral rules will make them contractually
binding on the parties, but it will not make them binding on the attorneys representing the
parties.
The consensual jurisdiction of arbitration applies only to parties to the arbitration
agreement,391 not to their legally autonomous representatives.
As a consequence, attorneys in
international arbitration are neither bound by the ethical rules that are incorporated into the
arbitral agreement, nor personally subject to any inherent sanction power of the arbitral
tribunal.392 This escape hatch must be closed.
The best way to achieve this goal is to require that attorneys who participate in
arbitral proceedings agree to be bound personally by arbitral rules, including the ethical
388
It is possible that, consistent with their efforts to attract international arbitration, national legislatures
could provide for expedited review of misconduct hearings.
389
While a losing party could resist enforcement of an award based on allegations of misconduct, at the
enforcement stage a winning party has no opportunity to raise allegations of misconduct except in the event that the
losing party had costs and fees assessed against it. See infra Section III.B.2.
390
The term moral entrepreneur is borrowed from Dezalay and Garths groundbreaking research into the
social context of the arbitration industry. See DEZALAY & GARTH, DEALING IN VIRTUE, supra note 55, at 11.
391
See REISMAN, INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL A RBITRATION, supra note 190, at 484.

Notably, in the Biermann case, supra note 224, the court never determined whether the parties had
agreed to submit the issue of attorney disqualification to arbitration, but decided instead on the grounds of public
policy that such issues could not be submitted to arbitration. See Thomas, Disqualifying Lawyers in Arbitrations,
supra note 7, at 565.
392
108

requirements.393
This commitment would be contractual in nature (like the underlying arbitral
agreement) and could be secured either as part of the procedures for commencing arbitration
(i.e., as an appendix to the Statement of Claim and Response) or during initial meetings provided
for under most arbitral rules.394 As part of the arbitral rules that are incorporated into a partys
contract, parties would be obliged to ensure that their attorneys follow this procedureeven if
that means they must replace counsel who are unwilling to undertake these obligations.395
Making attorneys subject to the proposed ethical regime will not only satisfy the
obvious need to subject them ethical regulation, but will also draft attorneys into service as cosponsors of the process of developing the ethical regime for international arbitration.396
Practicing attorneys will contribute to the development of ethics when they draft arbitral
agreements, when they make arguments for adopting or enforcing particular norms, and through
their professional conduct in observing or not observing prevailing ethical norms.397
Forcing
393
The estimable fees to be earned in arbitration will provide sufficient pressure to ensure that attorneys
will agree to submit to be governed by arbitral ethical norms and the sanctioning power of arbitrators.
394
For example, under the ICC Rules, after the arbitral tribunal is chosen, one of the first events prescribed
by the rules is a hearing at which the parties and the arbitrators will draw up a document called the Terms of
Reference. The Terms of Reference spell out the issues in dispute and the procedures for adjudicating those issues.
See CRAIG, INTERNATIONAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE A RBITRATION, supra note 101, at 15.02, pp.258-59.
395
Accountability to the arbitral tribunal would not seem to be objectionable since it is comparable to other
adjudicatory settings, in which attorneys are subject to the power of judges and bound by the forum jurisdictions
ethical norms. For example, a U.S. attorney licensed in California who appears in a Nevada court must, after
obtaining permission to appear pro hoc vice, must abide by Nevada ethical rules of court is liable to Nevada (and
California) bar authorities for transgressions. See Marcia L. Proctor, Ethics in Adversarial Practice, 69 A M. JUR.
TRIALS 411 (1999) (explaining the process for being admitted pro hoc vice and the jurisdiction of adjudicating
courts over attorney misconduct in proceedings before them). Likewise, a French attorney appearing in a German
court must abide by German ethical rules and is liable to German authorities for transgressions. See Terry,
Introduction to the European Communitys Legal Ethics, supra note 10, at 17.
396
By collectively engaging in the process of enacting and enforcing rules of professional conduct,
lawyers develop and reinforce the disposition for moral decisionmaking. Wilkins, Who Should Regulate Lawyers,
supra note 78, at 862.
397
Richard L. Abel & Phillip S.C. Lewis, Putting Law Back into the Sociology of Lawyers, in LAWYERS IN
SOCIETY, VOLUME THREE, supra note 23 (It hardly needs argument today that law and lawyers create [a legal]
culture as well as being its creatures.); see also Robert Briner, The Role of Lawyers in ADR 243, in GLOBAL LAW IN
PRACTICE (ed. J. Ross Harper 1997) (describing how lawyers influence the progress and shape of arbitration).
109

them to accept a stake in the outcome of these developments will ensure the quality of their
participation.
5. Published Sanction Awards as Explicators
Arbitrators new sanction power should be implemented through what I will call
sanction award. This enforcement mechanism is consistent with the notion that arbitral ethical
rules will also be contractual obligations.
With allegations of misconduct, arbitrators should
conduct a factual investigation and permit the accused attorney an opportunity to be heard.398 If
the arbitral tribunal determines that a violation has occurred, the tribunal would publish the
relevant findings in a reasoned sanction award, which imposes a fine and, if appropriate, refer
the matter to the attorneys local bar association. In the event that no misconduct is found, the
tribunal would publish an advisory opinion articulating the basis for the finding that no
misconduct had occurred.399
Unlike conventional arbitration awards, which are generally maintained as
confidential,400 sanction awards must be published, although publication can be with the names
of the parties and the attorneys expunged. Publication will serve a number of functions.401 The
398
In the analogous context of Rule 11, the Advisory Committee notes suggest that the judge has
considerable discretion in formulating the process to be followed, including deciding the matter on the basis of the
record and the judges own observation of the conduct of the litigation. See CHARLES A LLEN W RIGHT & A RTHUR R.
M ILLER, FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE , sec. 1337.
399
See infra notes 238-41 regarding enforcement in national courts of sanction awards.
400
Recognizing the benefits of a developed common law of arbitral decisions, UNCITRAL is calling for
states to designate national correspondents who will send court and arbitral decisions interpretation relevant
conventions as well as abstracts of them to the UNCITRAL Secretariat. The Secretariat will compile the abstracts
and enter them into its index or reference system for the particular convention. The compiled abstracts are to be
issued in a U.N. document (in the six U.N. languages) several times per year. Peter H. Pfund, United States
Participation in Transnational Lawmaking 212, in LEX M ERCATORIA AND A RBITRATION (Thomas E. Carbonneau,
ed., 1998).
401
For an expanded discourse on the benefits of published awards in arbitration, see REISMAN, NULLITY
AND REVISION, supra note 61, and Thomas E. Carbonneau, Rendering Arbitration Awards with Reasons: The
Elaboration of a Common Law of International Transactions, 23 COLUMB. J. TRANSNAT L L. 579 (1985).
110

foremost purpose of publication is to interpret and refine ethical norms. Codes can only address
attorney obligations in the broadest and most general terms.
As in all systems, the specific
content to ethical norms in international arbitration must be developed through application in

specific cases.402
Written arbitrator opinions will form a body of non-binding, persuasive
authority, which will guide future arbitrations, provide notice to attorneys about how to conduct
themselves and alert parties about the consequences of particular ethical rules.403
At a more practical level, publication is necessary for national courts to provide
an oversight and review function.404
There is no requirement for, and in fact there is some
resistance to, publication of substantive arbitral awards.
The reasons for this reluctance is to
avoid tempting national courts to second guess the articulated reasoning of substantive awards.405
As explained in more detail below,406 national courts have a vital role to play in reviewing
sanction awards. Reasoned awards are necessary for national courts to perform the this review
function.
Finally, there is the public aspect of publication. Publicity guarantees some form
of continuous public surveillance.407
Particularly when the substantive rule making and primary
enforcement are taken out of the hands of public bodies that normally administer these aspects of
attorney regulation, informal public monitoring becomes more important.
Even within the
402
In national contexts, rules are supplemented by commentary by bar associations and judicial opinions,
which fill out the meaning of often-cryptic code language. See Schneyer, Legal Process Scholarship, supra note
238, at 39.
403
See Richard Abel, Why Does the ABA Promulgate Ethical Rules, 59 TEX. L. REV. 639, 646 (1981).
404
For a description of the role of national courts, see infra subsection III.A.7.
405
See Thomas E. Carbonneau, Rendering Arbitral Awards with Reasons: The Elaboration of a Common
Law of International Transactions, 23 COLUM.J. TRANSNAT L L. 579, 602 (1985).
406
See infra Section III.A.7.
111

international arbitration community, published sanction awards will generate dialog about the
appropriate conduct for lawyers in international arbitration.
Enforcement proceedings are an
important arena for debating conflicting visions of the lawyers role.408

While publication is an essential feature of international arbitrations ethical
regime, a number of issues remain to be resolved. Who would undertake the task of publishing?
Should all sanction awards be published in their entirety?409 Would or should published sanction
awards have any influence on future arbitration panels?410
These and other likely questions,
while potentially difficult to resolve, they are not insurmountable obstacles.
Sanction awards
provide a vital link between the most competent primary regulator (arbitrators), and national
legal systems that have a continuing interest in how their attorneys behaving and how they are
regulated.
6. The New York Convention as Facilitator
Sanction awards will have to be made enforceable under the New York
Convention.
Currently, signatories to the New York Convention are obliged to recognize and
enforce arbitration agreements and awards only when certain jurisdictional requirements are met.
407
REISMAN, NULLITY AND REVISION, supra note 61, at 124 (1971) (discussing the desirability of
publishing substantive arbitral awards).
408
See Wilkins, supra note 78, at 883; Judith Resnik, Due Process: A Public Dimension, 39 U. FLA. L.
REV. 405, 420 (1987).
409
See Carbonneau, Arbitral Awards with Reasons, supra note 401, at 600 (posing similar questions with
respect to publication of substantive arbitral awards).
410
Arbitration awards do not purport to have any precedential value in the sense that they are binding on
future panels, nor could they since arbitrators decisions are not subject to substantive review. Moreover, any
persuasive authority they may have must be discounted by the degree of party modification of default ethical norms.
There have been some indications that at least some parties want the initial decision by arbitrators subject to judicial
review. While, for both national legal systems and parties, national court review at the appellate level may not be
desirable, it may signal a need for an appellate body to be formed for standard international commercial arbitration
similar to that available for ICSID arbitration. For a description of the appellate function in ICSID arbitration, see
REISMAN, SYSTEMS OF CONTROL, supra note 57, at 122.
112

Of these jurisdictional requirements, the two that are of concern here are the requirements that
the dispute arise out of a commercial relationship and that it concern a subject matter that is
capable of settlement by arbitration in the country where enforcement is sought.411
The fit between the commercial relationship prerequisite and the proposed
sanction awards is primarily a question of interpretation. It could be argued that a commercial
relationship requirement exists since the underlying professional relationship between an
attorney and client involves a contract for compensation, even if not traditionally viewed through
the lens of commerce.
Moreover, the proposal (above in sub-section 3) to make attorneys
subject to the new arbitral code of ethics requires that attorneys agree to be bound by the
applicable code of arbitral ethics. By so agreeing, attorneys are undertaking what is essentially a
contractual obligation to abide by the procedural and ethical provisions of the parties arbitration
agreement.
Notwithstanding possible arguments in favor of capturing sanction awards within
the definition of commercial, some countries might be reluctant to permit arbitrators to impose
sanctions are likely to adopt a more narrow interpretation412 or simply to find, under the second
prerequisite, that ethical conduct is not arbitrable.413
This narrow approach to arbitrability and particularly the commercial-dispute
requirement is a vestige of a past era, when the range of potential claims that could arise between
private business entities in a contractual relationship was narrower. Since the time it has acceded
411
See GARY B. BORN, INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL A RBITRATION IN THE UNITED STATES:

COMMENTARY AND M ATERIALS (1994)).
412
For an older example of such reluctance, even in light of a contract for exchange between two
commercial entities, see India Organic Chemicals, Ltd. v. Chemtex Fibres Inc. (1978) All India Rep. 106 (High Ct.
of Bombay 1977) (concluding that a technology transfer was not commercial under law of India) (cited in GARY
B. BORN, INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL A RBITRATION IN THE UNITED ST ATES: COMMENTARY AND M ATERIALS
(1994)).
113

to the Convention, the United States has entrusted more and more regulatory issues to private
litigants to enforce.414
While the same trend is still only beginning to take hold on the
continent,415 it seems clear that if international arbitration is to offer full adjudication of claims
arising out of a particular transaction, its reach must extend to statutory and tort claims that relate
to underlying commercial claims. Permitting arbitrators to issue sanction awards must be part of
that trend.
Notwithstanding the potential to interpret the New York Convention to extend to
sanction awards, this proposal will likely require amendment to the New York Convention, both
because spontaneous and consistent national support cannot be presumed and because the
heightened standard for review of sanction awards cuts against existing standards in the New
York Convention.
7. National Legal Systems as Legitimaters
Unlike substantive awards on the merits, sanction awards should be subject to
more probing oversight and review by national courts.
In the context of substantive awards,
national court review is limited to severe procedural defects or encroachments on the public
policy of national law of the reviewing court.416
The justification for this limited review is that
parties in a business dispute require resolution by a neutral adjudicator and intrusive oversight by
413
The issue private arbitrators enforcing public functions will be reviewed in more detail below in section
III.B.
414
In fact, even though the Securities Act was adopted in the 30s, private litigation under the act became
fashionable much later. The nature of so-called mandatory law in the international context is inherently different
than it is in the domestic setting. In a national context, mandatory law, as its name implies, is inescapable. In the
international setting, where there are competing claims to prescriptive and adjudicatory jurisdiction over particular
conduct, one nations assertion that particular law is mandatory does necessarily not make it inescapable. While
national perspectives on mandatory law and its effect in arbitration will undoubtedly affect reactions to the proposals
to permit arbitrators to sanction, a full discussion of issues implicated is beyond the scope of this Article.
415
The most immediate example of this transition in the European Union is new reforms to European antitrust law, which will rely much more on private attorney general mechanisms for enforcement.
416
See supra note 81-83, and accompanying text.
114

national courts may shift the real decision-making from the arbitral tribunal to the courts.417 In
the context of sanction awards, however, the inquiry is into an arbitrators assessment of the
conduct of an attorney, not the arbitrators assessment of the merits of the case.418 Consequently,
the need to insulate arbitrator decision-making from national court review at the enforcement
stage is less strong.419
Conversely, in the context of sanction awards, the need for procedural safeguards
is higher.
Regulation of professional conduct through a sanctioning power may affect not only
the pocketbook, but also an attorneys occupation. Meanwhile, ethical rules will be new and, for
most arbitrators, the task of evaluating misconduct and meting out of punishment will be new.
National courts are therefore needed for quality control.
Through monitoring the creation,
interpretation and application of ethical norms, national courts will play a vital role in
legitimizing arbitral ethical norms420 and in providing guidance about the ultimate limits of the
417
See REISMAN, SYSTEMS OF CONTROL, supra note 57 at 113.
418
This is not to deny the inter-relationship between allegations of misconduct and the merits of the case. It
is easy to imagine that an allegation that one counsel induced a witness to lie would of course implicate the factual
findings on which the arbitral tribunal rested its award. This potential for abuse does not weigh against a more
active role for national courts. A finding of attorney misconduct of such magnitude would likely also trigger
national court inquiry under Article V of the New York Convention. See, e.g., Waterside Ocean Nav. Co. v.
International Nav. Ltd., 737 F.2d 150 (2d Cir. 1984) (confirming award notwithstanding evidence of perjured
testimony based on reasoning that falsity of testimony was raised during proceedings and evaluated by arbitrators).
419
The temptation, of course, will be for reviewing courts to color their analysis of misconduct at issue in
sanction awards with their own culturally determined notions of what is proper conduct for an attorney. For
example, a jurisdiction such as the United States might be reluctant to enforce a sanction award against an American
attorney who sought to prepare a witness for upcoming testimony, even if all participants to the arbitration had
agreed that such practice was impermissible. Similarly, a French court may be reluctant to enforce sanctions on a
French attorney who intentionally withheld documents that would not be discoverable in a French proceeding. For
an explanation of the French repulsion to U.S.-style discovery, see BORN & WESTIN, INTERNATIONAL CIVIL
LITIGATION, supra note 198, at 849-52. Inevitably, international arbitral ethics must displace certain aspects of
national ethical regimes. This transposition can only be successful if accepted and endorsed by national courts.
420
See Carbonneau, Arbitral Awards with Reasons, supra note 59, at 601.
115

power to modify ethical rules.421
B. Anticipating the Detractors

Having conceived of a potentially efficient and effective enforcement regime, the
task now is to anticipate and answer some of the inevitable objections.
Concerns over this
proposed regime will likely arise because it appears to privatize ethical norms and professional
discipline in international arbitration.422
While this characterization is not entirely accurate, it
raises concerns that are bound up with more profound questions about the nature of ethics, the
function of arbitration and the legal process more generally. Not all objections can be answered
here, but this final Section attempts to respond to the most pressing concerns.
1. The Heresy of Default Ethical Rules
The concept of ethics is steeped in moral and normative symbolism.
It is this
feature that many would claim, in sacrosanct tones, distinguishes ethical rules from contract
rules. Terms such as price and time of delivery can be altered by the parties, according to this
argument, but ethical rules by their nature are immutable and unalterable. They protect interests
that are not captured in a contractual agreement and should be treated as inviolable. Under this
objection, the need for a match between procedural arrangements and ethical rules423 is
subordinate to the need to maintain the integrity of legal ethics.
Another, equally forceful critique is that a power to modify would give the hen
421
For further discussion about the limitations on parties power to modify ethical norms, see infra Section
422
See Ware, Privatizing Law through Arbitration, supra note 187, at 733.
III.B.1.b.
116

house keys to the proverbial fox. 424 International lawyers are the ones to be regulated, but they
will also be the ones entrusted with negotiating changes to default norms and they will have an
incentive to negotiate out of existence any constraints on their conduct.
In its most extreme
form, this objection might characterize modifiable ethical norms as a means, if not a direct
attempt, to circumvent and undermine national ethical norms.
These objections, while
understandable, lose their bite when the context of and limitations on this power to modify are
understood.
a) Modifiability in Context
Despite the apparent anomaly of treating ethical rules as contract terms, it is
actually common practice, at least in the United States,425 where many ethical rules are already
contractually modifiable default rules.426
For example, Model Rule 1.7 prohibits an attorney
from representing a client if the representation would be materially limited by the lawyers
other interests and responsibilities, but permits the attorney and parties to contract around the
prohibition.427 The primary difference between the current U.S. practice and the proposal of this
Article is that, under current U.S. practice, only a limited number of specified rules can be
423
For a description of the relationship between procedural arrangements and ethical norms, see supra
Section II.A.; for an explanation of why this relationship indicates a need for modifiable norms in arbitration, see
supra Section III.D.
424
The fox-henhouse argument has been raised in opposition to self-regulation through professional bar
associations and to judicial participation in the process. See Schneyer, The Regulation of Lawyers, supra note 110,
at 41.
425
Although the CCBE Code does not permit client waiver of conflicts of interest, but it has been suggested
that such a consent provision is necessary and inevitable. See Terry, Introduction to the European Communitys
Legal Ethics, supra note 10, at 1395. Even under the CCBE Code, confidential communications are subject to
waiver by a client because communications to which a client consents to disclosure would not constitute a secret.
See id.
426
427
See W OLFRAM, supra note 76, at 339.

See Macey & Miller, supra note 281, at 969.
117

contractually modified, such as the duty to maintain client confidences and to avoid conflicts of
interest.428
Under the new regime, all ethical rules would become the product of contractual
agreement, though (as explained later) not modifiable in their entirety.429

Expanding the realm of ethical norms that are subject to modification is possible
in international arbitration because the realm of formal contractual relationships is expanded.
Under the Model Rules, only obligations that flow to the client are contractually modifiable
because, in standard litigation settings, the only formal contractual relationship exists between
the clients and their attorneys. There is no contractual relationship between an advocate and the
opposing party, the judge or the system more generally. Consequently, there is no opportunity to
contractually modify obligations that an attorney owes to these other entities. All these interests
are, however, contractually linked together in an arbitration.
While the arbitration agreement is the central contract, often the only one reduced
to writing and typically the only one discussed in the literature, it is not the only contract.
Arbitration establishes a web of contracts between the parties, arbitral institutions, arbitrators,
and, under the proposed regime, the parties attorneys.430
When a party pays money to an
arbitral institution in exchange for their services in administering the arbitration, and when a
party pays money (usually indirectly through an intermediary arbitral institution) to an arbitrator
428
The other major difference is that under the Model Rules, agreements must be particularized and can
only be made ex post, meaning that a client can agree to waive a specified conflict after the facts of the particular
situation are presented. Under the proposed regime, modifications would be ex ante and en masse. A client would
agree to waive all conflicts up to the standard of the proposed modification, even though the precise facts giving rise
to such conflicts are as yet unknown. Permitting ex ante waiver of some ethical rules, while a delicate subject, is
already under consideration in the United States. See Richard W. Painter, Advance Waiver of Conflicts, 13 GEO J.
LEGAL ETHICS 289 (2000).
429
Limitations on the parties ability to contractually modify the proposed ethical codes will be taken up
infra III.B.1.
430
See supra section III.A.4.
118

in exchange for decision-making services, implied-in-fact contracts arise.431
With all these
players implicated in contractual arrangements, it is possible to expand the range of ethical rules
that can be modified through contract.
The American rules pertaining ex parte communication with party-appointed
arbitrators, while not normally thought of in such terms, can be understood as an example of
ethical norms modified (or created) by agreement.432 U.S. ethical rules, even if they do not apply
directly I international arbitration, prohibit communication with judges and juries in order to
preserve the impartiality of the decision-maker.433
The contrary rule that followed in U.S.
domestic arbitration is a creature of contractit is permissible, even if contrary to the

assumptions underlying the U.S. rule, because the parties agreed to it.434
While party agreement will be a necessary requirement for modification of default
rules, it will not always be a sufficient one.
Ethical rules protect some interests of the
international arbitration system generally and national interests that are not implicated in the web
of contractual arrangements that constitute a particular arbitration.
For example, even if
contractually agreed to, a particular rule may do such violence to the principle of impartial
decision-making that an award rendered in accordance with it is inherently unfair.
Enforcing
such an award would degrade the international arbitration system, even if the parties in the
431
Many systems, particularly civil law systems, explicitly acknowledge the contractual nature of the
relationship between arbitrators and parties by imposing liability on arbitrators for professional and ethical breaches
under a contract theory. See Susan D. Franck, The Liability of International Arbitrators: A Comparative Analysis
and Proposal for Qualified Immunity, 20 N.Y.L.SCH. J. INT L & COMP . L 1 (2000).
432
See supra Section 2.B.2.
433
See id.
434
Ex parte communication with party arbitrators makes for an interesting example of an existing practice
of contractually modifying ethical rules, but I am not advocating here that it be adopted for international arbitration.
119

arbitration were willing to accept the result.435
National legal systems continue to have an interest in attorney conduct, even
though they are not directly administering international arbitration cases.
In domestic litigation,
national legal systems regulate attorneys in order to protect clients and third parties, and to
ensure the proper functioning of the state adjudicatory apparatus. In arbitration, these regulatory
interests still exist, but their dimensions are decidedly narrower. For example, there is less of a
need for regulatory protection of clients in international commercial arbitration because they are,
by definition, sophisticated corporate entities.
They have considerable resources to invest in
evaluating lawyer conduct and can demand loyalty in exchange for future business.436
party interests in international arbitration also require less protection.
Third-
International arbitration
cases involve private commercial disputes and arbitral decisions are not binding on other third
parties. As a consequence, the risk is lower that attorney misconduct during an arbitration could
adversely affect parties who are not directly involved in the proceedings.437
Finally, national
legal systems are less vulnerable to institutional damage from attorney misconduct in
international commercial arbitration because under the New York Convention, the role of
domestic courts in enforcing awards is minimal in comparison to their role in adjudicating cases.
Even if diminished, however, some interest in protecting clients, third parties and
435
Some argue that permitting ex parte communication with party arbitrators is just such a rule. See
Desiree A. Kennedy, Predisposed with Integrity: The Elusive Quest for Justice in Tripartite Arbitrations, 8 GEO. J.
LEGAL ETHICS 749, 765 (1995) (criticizing arbitration that permits party communication with arbitrators as
incompatible with the principle that adjudicators should be impartial).
436
See Wilkins, supra note 78, at 817-18 (describing how corporate clients have experience, access to
information and resources to devote to the task of understanding and evaluating lawyer conduct).
437
It is also worth noting that witnesses, a class of third parties often referred to as a target of ethical
protections, are a less vulnerable as a group in international arbitration. Proceedings are private, which means that
potential embarrassment from abusive cross-examination is less extensive, and witnesses cannot normally be
compelled to testify in international commercial arbitration .
120

the legal order remains. The threat that corporate clients will replace irresponsible attorneys may
deter prospectively, but it is neither a complete deterrent nor an adequate remedy once
misconduct has occurred. Third parties may be less exposed to harm in international commercial
arbitration, butparticularly with respect to opposing partiesthey are not completely
insulated.
Finally, even if domestic courts are not responsible for direct administration of the
proceedings, they can be debased if they ratify an award produced by a corrupt and unfair
process.438
Together, these concerns are not enough to preclude the possibility of modifiable
ethical norms, but they are sufficient to raise concerns about what limitations exist on the power
to modify.
b) Constraints on the Power to Modify

Attorneys power to modify the arbitral codes will be limited by a range of
interdependent constraints.
Before considering those that are integrated in the international
arbitration system, it should be noted that several external constraining forces.439 For example,
many national statutes criminalize,440 or impose civil liability for,441 conduct that also constitutes
438
The authority of the arbitrator derives not only from the consent of the parties, but also from the several
legal systems that support the process. William W. Park, National Law and Commercial Justice: Safeguarding
Procedural Integrity in International Arbitration, 63 TUL. L. REV. 647, 649 (1989) (noting that national courts may
be required to intervene at several points to assist the arbitral process). WRONG PLACE
439
Notably, conduct that is not addressed in a code of arbitral ethics, such as attorney handling of client
funds or attorney advertising, will remain subject to national ethical rules.
440
For example, some types of conflicts of interest may constitute a criminal offence. See United States v.
Bronston, 658 F.2d 920 (2d Cir. 1981), (affirming conviction of lawyer for fraudulent use of mails for lawyers
conflicting and undisclosed purpose) (cited in W OLFRAM, supra note 76, at 7.1.1, p. 314 & n. 6). Moreover, the
federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) can be applied if a lawyer assists clients in
committing crimes. See id. at 698.
441
See, e.g., CAL. BUS. & PROF. CODE 6068(e) (West 1990) (prohibiting an attorney from disclosing
client confidences after representation has ended). These constraints are not sufficient to obviate the need for
articulated and binding norms proposed in this Article, but they do provide substantial safeguards against attorney
efforts to abolish ethical constraints altogether. Malpractice claims are the other obvious area of civil liability,
though standards used to evaluate whether since client ratification is an affirmative defense to legal malpractice
121

an ethical violation.
Such conduct will continue to be prohibited under these national statutes,
even if the correspondent ethical rule is modified.442
In addition to formal prohibitions, less
formal constraints, such as professional reputation and peer pressure, will deter over-zealous
truncating of ethical obligations.443
Even attorneys who might be willing to act unscrupulously
are likely to hesitate displaying their indifference toward ethical rules, particularly in the delicate
moments of negotiation.444
Turning to the international arbitration system and the proposed regime, there are
a range of constraints on the power to modify, which together will provide adequate protection
for clients, third parties and larger systemic interests.
Clients are protected against injurious
modifications because the power to modify ultimately rests in their hands. No alterations can be
made without consent, and in the context of international commercial arbitration, that consent
comes from a sophisticated international company. Opposing parties are similarly protected by a
requirement of their consent. Any incentive a party may have to minimize the ethical constraints
on its own attorney will be counterbalanced by the partys disincentive to bargain away
constraints on opposing counsel. Consequently, the most likely victim of attorney misconduct in
an advocacy setting, the opposing party, also enjoys protections inherent in the modification
claims and ethical codes are often looked to as a source of guidance in evaluating civil liability. See W OLFRAM,
supra note 76, at 206-26, 52.
442
Under the U.S. Model Rules, attorneys are prohibited from making any material misrepresentations of
fact or law to third parties, which would arguably include the arbitral tribunal. Since attorneys do not enjoy the
same immunity in arbitration that they do in litigation settings, at least in the United States, it is possible that a
misrepresentation to an arbitral tribunal could also give rise to a claim for fraud. While interesting to contemplate,
particularly sine the res judicata effect of arbitral awards is dubious, such collateral claims could do serious damage
to the arbitration system if they became a popular replacement for appeal.
443
Cf. W. Michael Reisman, Looking, Staring and Glaring: Microlegal Systems and the Public Order, 12
DENV. J. INT L L. & POLY 165 (1983) (describing the role of social pressure and informal regimes in regulating
behavior).
122

process.
Even if in light of these constraining forces, it is still possible that attorneys can
exceed the limits of good sense and seek to eliminate essential ethical precepts from the rules
that bind them. That is where systemic controls come into play. Parties and counsel who tamper
with fundamental essentials of legal ethics will risk that an award produced under their
modifications will not be enforceable.
Under the New York Convention, national courts can
refuse to enforce arbitral awards if basic notions of fairness and justice were not observed during
the arbitral proceedings,445 as would be the case if fundamental ethical precepts were abrogated.
Parties could not, for example, expect that an award would be enforceable if they had erased all
prohibitions against misrepresenting facts to the tribunal or against bribing arbitrators.
In
addition to providing an actual control, the threat of unenforceability will likely deter abusive
modifications.
While the specified grounds in the New York Convention for non-enforcement
will permit review to ensure that attorney conduct in the arbitration comported with the most
universal, basic precepts of justice and fairness, national courts will also be able to protect those
aspects of ethics that are of particular importance to their national regulatory scheme. Article V
contains a public policy exception, which permits national courts to refuse enforcement of
awards that offend their domestic public policy.446
There is a ready-made example of the line
444
Negotiation over ethical rules is most likely to occur, not in the initial drafting of the arbitration
agreement, but at the commencement of arbitration when other procedural negotiations are ordinarily done.
445
See Park, Safeguarding Procedural Integrity in International Arbitration, supra note 68 at 701.
Although the public policy exception has been defined very narrowly by courts and is rarely enforced, it
seems clear that arbitrations conducted in violation the enforcing nations ethical fundamentals would call into
serious question the fairness of the proceedings, as fairness is understood in that country. See THOMAS E.
CARBONNEAU, THE REMAKING OF A RBITRATION: DESIGN AND DESTINY, IN LEX M ERCATORIA AND ARBITRATION 10
446
123

between permissible and impressible modifications in Model Rule 1.7. Under this rule, a party
cannot consent to conflicting representation unless the lawyer reasonably believes that the
partys representation will not be adversely affected.447
This limitation has been interpreted to
require an objective evaluation of whether there is a threat to the clients representation. 448
While this objective standard may not be universally considered necessary to ensure the
fundamental fairness of proceedings and is likely more stringent than European standards,449 it
would be enforceable as U.S. public policy if U.S. courts reviewing substantive arbitral awards
choose to apply it as such. In this way, the public policy exception will act as an escape hatch
that will permit national courts to police modification to ensure that they do not violate the
essential assumptions about attorney conduct.
While national courts will be the ultimate bastion of protection, arbitrators will
also exercise a control function. Because arbitrators are always (or should always be) concerned
with the effectiveness of the award,450 they will use their powers to ensure that ethical
(Thomas E. Carbonneau ed., 1990) (noting that the French Cour de Cassation has devised a special notion of ordre
public for international [arbitral awards]: . . . public policy is confined to due process considerations and
requirements of basic procedural fairness (le contradictiore)); see also Arnold M. Zack, Arbitration as a Tool to
Unclog Government and the Judiciary: The Due Process Protocol as an International Model, 7 W ORLD A RB. &
M EDIATION REP . 10 (1996).
447
See W OLFRAM, supra note 76, at 339. Model Rule 1.7 also requires that the consent be in writing after
consultation. These requirements will ordinarily be met in the course of negotiating modifications to default rules
and memorializing the agreed to modifications.
448
See W OLFRAM, supra note 76, at 7.2, p. 341.

It has yet to be determined how the standard under the CCBE Code will be interpreted. It is plausible,
however, that given the different role of civilian lawyers and more personal approach to conflicts, European
standards might be satisfied with a less restrictive standard, for example as long as the attorney subjectively believes
that representation will not be impaired. See Section I.B.4.
450
See Yves Derains, Public Policy and the Law Applicable to the Dispute in International Arbitration, in
COMPARATIVE A RBITRATION PRACTICE AND PUBLIC OF POLICY IN A RBITRATION (Pieter Sanders, ed., 1987)
(suggesting that arbitrators must keep an eye toward the mandatory law of the like enforcement jurisdiction or
juris dictions to ensure that their award is enforceable); Park, Safeguarding Procedural Integrity in International
Arbitration, supra note 68 (same). Article 26 of the ICC Rules expressly states that arbitrators shall make every
effort to ensure that eh award is enforceable at law. Moreover, in ICC arbitration, the International Court of
449
124

modifications do not imperil enforcement.
Arbitrators generally have a great deal of discretion
in managing proceedings, but this power usually yields when both parties have agreed to a
particular procedural rule and would, by extension, to ethical rules. It is unclear to what extent
arbitrators have the power or obligation to disregard the will of the parties in order to ensure the
fairness of the arbitral proceedings.451
Even when the parties have agreed to a rule, however, arbitrators still have the
power of interpretation.
Faced with a general rule that appears to unacceptably undermine
critical ethical precepts, arbitrators can interpret and apply the rule in a way that ensures the
fundamental fairness of the proceedings.452 Even in the absence of formal power, to the extent
that modifications take place after proceedings have begun, arbitrators can use their powers of
persuasion to urge reason to ethically reckless parties.
In sum, the lesson of the functional approach is that ethical rules can only
effectively regulate attorneys if they coincide with the functional roles they have been assigned
in particular arbitrations through the chosen procedures. Because procedural rules are subject to
modification, the attendant ethical rules must also, with some limitations, be modifiable.
The
Arbitration (the administrative body of the ICC), is empowered under Article 21 to scrutinize awards and draw
attention to points of substance that might interfere with enforcement of the award.
451
The English 1996 Act provides a helpful example of the problem. The Act imposes on arbitrators a duty
to act fairly and impartially and permit each party a reasonable opportunity both to put on its case and to
respond to its opponents case. See Martin Hunter, The Procedural Powers of Arbitrators Under the English 1996
Act, 13 Arb. Intl 345, 346 (1997) (citing section 33(1) of the Act). In addition, the Act imposes a duty on
arbitrators to adopt procedures and exercise their powers generally in a way that provide[s] a fair means for the
resolution of the matters[.] See id. These obligations appear to be in conflict with the requirement in section 34,
which states that the power of the tribunal to decide procedural and evidentiary matters is subject to the right of the
parties to agree [sic] any matter. See id. Some scholars suggest that this apparent tension does not create an
opportunity for arbitrators to disregard the will of the parties, and is instead resolved by the ability of arbitrators to
resign if an agreement of the parties conflicts with its obligations under section 33. See id. at 347.
125

potential for abuse of this power to modify will be deterred and controlled by multiple and
interrelated constraints.
2. The Anarchy of Private Adjudicators Imposing Public Sanctions
Currently, none of the major arbitral rules expressly confer on arbitrators the
power to sanction for misconduct.453 Analogs in the public international law arena do not offer
much guidance because international tribunals have themselves only rarely addressed the issue of
their own power to sanction attorney misconduct.454 Perhaps as a consequence of this silence,
scholars have paid little attention to the issue of whether arbitrators have such power.455
review of scholarship in this area reveals only a few stray conclusory remarks, with no little or
no explanation or analysis for the origin of such power.456 No authoritative scholarly work has
452
In doing so, arbitrators would not be disregarding the parties intentions, so much as interpreting those
intentions at a higher level of abstraction. Premier among the parties intentions in selecting arbitration is to choose
an effective means for resolving their dispute.
453
The only partial exception appears to be the recently promulgated arbitral rules developed by the Center
for Public Resources (CPR). Designed to provide an alternative to the popular UNCITAL rules for ad hoc
arbitration, arbitrators are authorized under the CPR rules to impose any remedy it deems just, including an award
on default, wherever a party materially fails to comply with the rules. See Robert H. Smit & Nicholas J. Shaw, The
Center for Public Resources Rules for Non-Administered Arbitration of International Disputes: A Critical and
Comparative Commentary, 8 A M. REV. INT L A RB. 275 (1997). Notably, the power contemplated by the CPR rules
seems to extend only over the parties, not their attorneys.
454
The sanctioning power of international tribunals has only recently been raised in the Appeals Chamber
of the International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations in the Territory of the
Former Yugoslavia.
See Prosecutor v. Dusko Tadic, http://www.un.org.icty/tadic/appeal/judgement/vujaj000131e.htm. (January 31, 2000) (finding a counsel in contempt for inducing perjury by witnesses). Interestingly,
the ITCFY is one of the only international bodies to draft and implement a code of ethics. See Code of Professional
Conduct for Defence Counsel, published at http://www.un.org/icty/basic/counsel/IT125.htm. The International
Court of Justice has only criticized counsel on two occasions, and has apparently never attempted to impose any sort
of sanction on counsel. See Vagts, The International Legal Profession, supra note 8, at 260.
455
The lack of attention to the power of arbitrators to sanction is inevitably related to the larger reasons
why little attention has been paid to the lack of ethical regulation in international arbitration. As noted above, this
neglect is likely attributable both to the fact that until recently the arbitration was informally regulated by social
controls. See supra Section I.A.1.
456
See, e.g., Thomas E. Carbonneau, National Law and the Judicialization of Arbitration: Manifest
Destiny, Manifest Disregard or Manifest Error 129, in INTERNATIONAL A RBITRATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY:
TOWARDS JUDICIALIZATION AND UNIFORMITY (Richard B. Lillich & Charles N. Brower, eds. 1993) (suggesting
that arbitrators possess the inherent authority to sanction a party for refusing to cooperate in good faith with the
126

been done to explore whether arbitrators have the power to sanction parties and their counsel for
misconduct.457
Similarly, there is no clear guidance from national precedents. The few national
courts that have addressed the subject have reached discordant conclusions. In the United States,
only three jurisdictions have considered whether arbitrators have the power to sanction.
Of
those, courts in the District of Columbia and Rhode Island decided that arbitrators do have an
inherent power to sanction, 458 while New York courts have adamantly refused to ratify any such
power.459 Meanwhile a French court has held that, in their role as private judges, arbitrators have
arbitral proceeding); See CRAIG, INTERNATIONAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE A RBITRATION, supra note 101, at 8.07
p.145 (stating bluntly that arbitrators do not have the power to hold parties in contempt). Some commentators have
engaged in more reasoned consideration of the issue, but even their conclusions are tentative and incomplete. See
Vagts, The International Legal Profession, supra note 8, at 253 (noting that although arbitral [j]urisdiction over
cases charging attorney misconduct in arbitration is in doubt, . . . [i]t appears that while arbitrators have no authority
to suspend or disbar attorneys, they could disqualify attorneys from appearing before them and could impose
sanctions for attorney misbehavior when it came to assessing the costs of the arbitration.); Thomas, Disqualifying
Lawyers in Arbitrations, supra note 7, at 577 (concluding, based on the New York Code of Professional
Responsibility, that in the context of attorney disqualification, it is clear that arbitrators are empowered, directly
and indirectly, to regulate the conduct of lawyers) (emphasis in original); C. Thomas Mason III, Lawyers Duties of
Candor Toward the Arbitral Tribunal, 998 PLI/CORP 59, 64 (1997) (There are sanctions and remedies available to
arbitrators who conclude that counsel has misrepresented the law or, through lack of due candor, has jeopardized the
fairness of the proceedings.).
457
Apparently the only article addresses a potential sanction power for arbitrators in the context of U.S.
securities arbitration. See Darren C. Blum, Punitive Power: Securities Arbitrators Need It, 19 NOVA L. REV. 1063
(1995).
458
A court of appeal in the District of Columbia held that arbitrators have authority to impose sanctions,
including costs and fees, for misconduct such as discovery abuses. See Pisciotta v. Shearson Lehman Bros, Inc., 629
A.2d 520 (D.C. 1993). Following the District of Columbias lead and arguing by analogy to statutory judicial
powers, a Rhode Island court found that arbitrators possess the power to award attorneys fees for discovery
misconduct. See Terrace Froup v. Vermont Castings, Inc., 753 A.2d 350 (R.I. 2000). This decision may have more
limited application because it was based on a Vermont statute that expressly permits an award of attorneys fees for
bad-faith conduct.
459
Only two New York courts have squarely addressed the issue of arbitrator power to rule on issues of
ethical misconduct. See Bidermann Indus. Licensing, Inc. v. Avmar N.V., 173 A.D.2d 401, 570 N.Y.S.2d 33 (1991)
(finding that issue of attorney disqualification involves both interpretation and application of attorney ethical codes
as well as clients right to counsel and therefore can not be left to determination of arbitrators); In the Matter of the
Arbitration Between Erdheim and Selkowe, 51 A.2d 705 (1976) ([W]e find nothing in the record before us
authorizing or empowering privately chosen arbitration board to censure members of the academy; and the power to
censure attorneys as members of Bar is reserved to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in each
department.). Other cases have considered related matters, such as in which court motions for disqualification from
127

the responsibility of assuring party compliance with arbitral rules and the power to impose
sanctions for the parties failure to abide by the rules of international public policy.460
This
power arguably would include at least the fundamentals of legal ethics, which ensure basic
fairness in the process. These scant precedents do little to resolve the issue, especially in light of
the significant national opposition to permitting arbitrators to perform what are considered public
judicial functions.
Many systems, particularly systems with a civil law tradition, prohibit arbitrators
from performing functions that other systems would consider basic adjudicatory functions, such
as swearing witnesses,461 awarding punitive damages,462 or ordering provisional remedies.463
an arbitration should be brought and whether attorney disqualification is a matter that a generally worded arbitration
agreement can be interpreted as submitting to the arbitral tribunal. See In the Matter of Erlanger and Erlanger, 20
N.Y.2d 778 (N.Y. Ct. App. 1967) (holding that jurisdiction to discipline an attorney for misconduct is vested
exclusively in the Appellate Division and that motions for disqualification are matter to be resolved by court in
which matter is pending, as opposed to other court); In the Matter of the Arbitration Between R3 Aerospace and
Marshall of Cambridge Aerospace Ltd., 927 F.Supp. 121 (S.D.N.Y. 1996) (finding that issue of attorney
disqualification from representation in arbitral proceedings is not arbitrable and does not relate to arbitration
agreement such that there was no federal jurisdiction under the New York Convention for dispute concerning
disqualification of counsel in arbitration). A claim for disqualification of counsel, while bound up in ethical issues,
is procedurally distinct from sanctions and many argue should be based on a different substantive standard. See
Thomas, Disqualifying Lawyers in Arbitrations, supra note 7, at 563 (arguing that disqualification is not a remedy
aimed at punishing misconduct, but rather a pragmatic effort to protect the integrity of ongoing proceedings).
460
Judgment of Mar. 29, 1991, Societe Ganz v. Societe Nationale des Chemin de Fers Tunisiens, Cour
d'appel de Paris, Revue de L'arbitral 478 (1991) (Fr.). (cited in Thomas E. Carbonneau & Francois Janson, Cartesian
Logic And Frontier Politics: French And American Concepts Of Arbitrability, 2 TUL. J. INT 'L & COMP . L. 193, 217
(1994) (Essay).
461
In continental Europe, arbitrators are not permitted to administer oaths to testifying witnesses because it
is considered a usurpation of judicial prerogatives, potentially exposing arbitrators to sanctions. See CRAIG,
INTERNATIONAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE A RBITRATION, supra note 101, at 25.02 p.398.
462
In a famous opinion on the subject, the New York Court of Appeals held that arbitrators have no power
to award punitive damages, even if the parties contractually agreed to confer such power on the arbitrator. See
Garrity v. Lyle Stuart, Inc., 353 N.E.2d 793, 40 N.Y.2d 354 (1976). In strident terms, the Garrity court reasoned
that allowing arbitrators to award punitive damages would displace the court and jury, and therefore the state, as the
engine for imposing social sanction. See id. The court also expressed concern that in arbitration, punitive damage
awards would be unreviewable and impervious to the protections provided by trial and appellate powers of
remittature. See id. Most other states in the United States permit arbitrators to award punitive damages in
commercial cases. See, e.g., Gateway Technologies v. MCI Telecommunications Corp., 64 F.3d 993 (5th Cir. 1995).
See Stipanowich supra note 24 at 1002 n.266 (Medieval merchant tribunals provide an ancient precedent for
awards of punitive damages outside the courts of law.) (quoting I. GROSS, SELECT CASES ON THE LAW M ERCHANT
128

Some countries have expressly prohibited arbitrators from imposing sanctions.
For example,
under the Swedish Arbitration Act, arbitrators are not prohibited from making orders on penalty
of a fine.464
The justification for prohibitions against these activities is that they are so-called
public functions and are therefore only properly administered by government agents.
public function is said to differ from a purely private matter because society has an interest in
monitoring and safeguarding the performance of a public function.465
In the modern
international arbitration system, the distinction between public and private functions is breaking
down.
The various objections raised against arbitrators exercising public functions, such
as a sanction power, boil down to essentially three types of concerns. The first area of concern is
about substantive resultsthat arbitrators often do not apply the law or are not as adept as judges
at applying the law and, as a consequence, will get it wrong.466 The second area of concern is
proceduralthat the public interests involved require the procedural protections and judicial
102- 03 (1908)). The Garrity rule has since been limited by the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Mastrobuono v.
Shearson Lehman Hutton, Inc., ., 514 U.S. 52 (1995). In that case, the Court held that for international arbitrations
New Yorks prohibitions against punitive damages in arbitration was preempted by the Federal Arbitration Act,
which permits arbitrators to make such awards. In international arbitrations, the Garrity rule applies to preclude
punitive awards only if the parties agreement invoked New York arbitration law as well as substantive law.
463
See, e.g., CRAIG, INTERNATIONAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE A RBITRATION, supra note 101, at 8.07
p.145 (noting that some countries laws expressly reserve the judges prerogatives of granting provisional relief
even when the dispute is subject to arbitration) (citing C. Reymond, Problmes actuels d larbitral commercial
international, 1982 REVUE CONOMIQUE ET SOCIALE 5)).
464
See Arbitration Act of 1929 (Swed.), Art 15, 1 (reprinted in INTERNATIONAL HANDBOOK ON
COMMERCIAL A RBITRATION (Pieter Sanders & Albert Jan van den Berg, eds. 2000 & 2001 Supp.).
465
See Ware, Privatizing Law through Arbitration, supra note 187 (citing IAN R. MACNEIL, RICHARD E.
SPEIDEL & THOMAS J. STIPANOWICH, FEDERAL A RBITRATION LAW 2.6.1, at 2:37 n.1 (1994); Lon Fuller, The
Forms and Limits of Adjudication, 92 HARV. L. REV. 353, 363-64 (1978)).
466
See Ware, Privatizing Law through Arbitration, supra note 401, at 733.
129

oversight that are lacking in arbitration.467
The final area of objection is more symbolicthat
punishment and enforcement of so-called mandatory law involve traditional notions of the
governments function and should therefore be reserved solely to government officials.
Of these three areas of concern, the first two are ameliorated if not completely
redressed by the proposed regime.
Arbitrators will be applying the ethical norms developed
especially for international commercial arbitration and the conduct at issue will, by definition,
have occurred during the arbitral proceedings.
Consequently, arbitrators will be uniquely
qualified to interpret arbitral ethical rules and uniquely positioned to evaluate whether attorney
conduct comports with those rules.
The second area of concern, lack of procedural safeguards,
is also redressed in this proposed regime, which contemplates publication and enhanced judicial
review of sanction awards.
It is not clear whether, as a matter of U.S. constitutional law,
heightened judicial review of sanction awards is necessary because of the punitive nature of
sanction awards.
There exists extensive scholarly debate about whether arbitration involves
state action and thus implicates constitutional protections such as due process.468
Even if
467
See Kenneth R. Davis, Due Process Right to Judicial Review of Arbitral Punitive Damages, 32 A M.
BUS. L.J. 583 (1995) (arguing that the Supreme Courts decision in Honda Motor Co. v. Oberg, which held that due
process requires appellate review of jury awards of punitive damages, also extends to arbitration); Ira P. Rothken,
Punitive Damages in Commercial Arbitration: A Due Process Analysis, 21 GOLDEN GATE U. L. REV. 387, 404
(1991) (opposing punitive awards in arbitration because arbitrators are not restrained by the rigor of due process);
but see Stephen J. Ware, Punitive Damages in Arbitration: Contracting Out of Governments Role in Punishment
and Federal Preemption of State Law, 63 FORDHAM L. REV. 529, (1994) (arguing that under the present state actor
doctrine, constitutional protections are not implicated by commercial arbitration). Although much of the debate has
focused on questions of constitutional requirements, there are more fundamental jurisprudential questions about the
basic desirability of enhanced procedural protections.
468
See Kenneth R. Davis, Due Process Right to Judicial Review of Arbitral Punitive Damages Awards, 32
A M. BUS. L.J. 583 (1995); Ira P. Rothken, Punitive Damages in Commercial Arbitration: A Due Process Analysis ,
21 GOLDEN GATE U. L. REV. 387, 404 (1991); Jean R. Sternlight, Rethinking The Constitutionality Of The Supreme
Court's Preference For Binding Arbitration: A Fresh Assessment Of Jury Trial, Separation Of Powers, And Due
Process Concerns, 72 TUL. L. REV. 1 (1997); Stephen J. Ware, Punitive Damages in Arbitration: Contracting Out of
Government's Role in Punis hment and Federal Preemption of State Law, 63 FORDHAM L. REV. 529, 559 (1994)
(arguing that due process obligations do not apply in arbitration because it does not involve state action); Richard
Reuben, Constitutional Gravity: A Unitary Theory of Alternative Dispute Resolution and Public Civil Justice, 47
U.C.L.A. L. Rev. 949, 997-99 (2000) (arguing that arbitration does involve state action and should therefore be
130

constitutional due process concerns do not require increased procedural protections when
arbitration is punitive, prudential concerns do.
As proposed above, heightened review of reasoned sanction awards would have
to be formulated as something more penetrating than the current factors in Article V of the New
York Convention, but something less exacting than de novo review.
This deferential but
substantive review will allow courts to ensure that arbitral interpretations of ethical rules were
reasonable and that there is some support for the factual findings. In other areas of mandatory
law, such as securities regulation and antitrust, the U.S. Supreme Court has suggested (although
not particularly clearly), that reluctance about submitting such claims to arbitrators is alleviated
if national courts take a so-called second look at arbitral awards involving mandatory law
claims.469
Although meaning and application of the second-look doctrine remain unclear, at a
minimum it suggests that arbitration of mandatory law claims are more palatable to the Supreme
Court if there is heightened review by national courts over the minimal review permitted by the
New York Convention. Under the proposed regime, national courts will be invited to undertake
subject to due process requirements under a proper understanding of the state action test, and in light of the binding
nature of arbitration and state court involvement in the process); Courts are similarly conflicted about whether
arbitration involves state action and is therefore subject to due process requirements. Compare Raytheon Co. v.
Automated Business Systems, Inc., 882 F.2d 6 (1st Cir. 1989), with Duffield v. Robertson Stephens & Co., 144 F.3d
1182 (9th Cir. 1998) (assuming without analysis that the due process clause applies in arbitration); rejecting the
argument that either arbitration or judicial enforcement of awards implicate state action, reasoning that dispute
resolution is not an exclusive governmental function).
469
This doctrine derives from the Courts now-famous dicta in Mitsubishi Motors Corp. v. Soler ChryslerPlymouth, Inc., 473 U.S. 614, 628-40 (1985), where the Court stated that in arbitrations implicating U.S. antitrust
claims:
the tribunal . . . should be bound to decide that dispute in accord with the national law giving rise
to the claim. . . . . [I]in the event the choice-of-forum and choice-of-law clauses operated in
tandem as a prospective waiver of a partys right to pursue statutory remedies for antitrust
violations, we would have little hesitation in condemning the agreement as against public policy.
Id. at 636-37 & n.19. This language has been interpreted to suggest that in arbitration of mandatory law
claims, such as antitrust, U.S. courts will take a second look to ensure that U.S. mandatory law has been honored.
The exact meaning and application of this doctrine remains unclear.
131

such heightened review, which will be facilitated by the requirement that arbitrators articulate the
bases for sanction awards.470 Whereas courts can protect the system against under-enforcement
when reviewing substantive arbitral awards,471 courts will protect individual attorneys against
over-enforcement or procedurally improper enforcement of arbitral ethical when reviewing
sanction awards.
As for the third area of concern, symbolic concerns about contracting out the
governments role in performing public functions, such concerns must be both weighed against
practical needs and evaluated in light of existing powers.
Any discussion about an arbitrator
sanction power must acknowledge that arbitrators will confront misconduct and, in the normal
course of controlling the proceedings before them, they will be impelled to redress the
misconduct.
Misconduct by counsel can affect the balance between the parties and ultimately
the fairness of the proceedings.
Ignoring misconduct or failing to rectify the advantage gained
by an advocate through improper conduct taints the proceedings before the tribunal.
unchecked,
perceived
arbitration system.
unfairness
will
If left
erode confidence in the international commercial
Ethical regulation must become more formal and explicit in order to serve
the needs of the modern international arbitration community.

It also has to be acknowledged that arbitrators already have substantial powers
that, as a practical matter, can be (and probably already are) used to as the functional equivalent
470
The fact that arbitration may occur in complete secrecy has been cited as one of the reasons why
matters of public policy, such as mandatory statutory claims, should not be subject to arbitration. See generally,
Philip J. McConnaughay, The Risks and Virtues of Lawlessness: A Second Look at International Commercial
Arbitration, 93 NW . U. L. REV. 453 (1999); see also William W. Park, Private Adjudicators and the Public Interest:
The Expanding Scope of International Arbitration, 12 BROOK. J. INT L L. 629, 630 (1986) (calling for greater
transparency in the arbitral process and more uniform rules of procedure and publication of awards as means of
increase the legitimacy and lawfulness of international commercial arbitration).
471
See supra Section III.B.1.
132

to a sanction power.
Under virtually all international arbitral rules, arbitrators can award costs
and fees, either under a loser pays theory or under a more equitable analysis that includes an
assessment of whether one party inappropriately increased the cost of arbitration. 472 Arbitrators
generally have the power to formulate procedural rules,473 which might be presumed to include
the power to enforce those rules.474 Not coincidentally, awards of costs and fees are the primary
means by which U.S. judges regulate misconduct, punishing transgressors and compensating
victims in the United States court proceedings.
472
See, e.g., International Arbitration Rules of the Zurich Chamber of Commerce, Art. 56, reprinted in 1
A RB. MAT L 215, 225 (1989) (providing that the costs of the proceedings are, as a rule, borne by the losing party
but allowing the tribunal for special reasons to depart from this rule, especially if the proceeding became without
object or if a party caused unnecessary costs) General Arbitration Law (Peru), embodied in Law No. 26572, Arts.
52 &89 (providing that, unless otherwise provided in the agreement, arbitrators may determine costs and fees in
accordance with the terms of their award); see also John Yukio Gotanda, Awarding Costs and Attorneys Fees in
International Commercial Arbitrations, 21 M ICH. J. INT L L. 1 (1999) (noting that an overwhelming number of
countries permit arbitrators to award costs and fees, which often run into the millions of dollars). As several
scholars have explained, fee-shifting operates as a means of regulating attorneys. See Schneyer, The Regulation of
Lawyers, supra note 110, at 35; W OLFRAM, supra note 76, at 929-30.
473
See Hans Smit, The Future of International Commercial Arbitration: A Single Transnational
Institution?, 25 COLUM. J. TRANSNAT L L. 9, 23-24 (1986); William W. Park, National Law and Commercial
Justice: Safeguarding Procedural Integrity in International Arbitration, 63 TUL. L. REV. 647 (1989) (citing
Nicklisch, Agreement to Arbitrate to Fill Contractual Gaps, 5 J. INT L A RB. (1988)).
474
The Paris Court of Appeal in Societe Ganz v. Societe Nationale des Chemin de Fers Tunisiens, ruled
that arbitrators have not only the authority but also the jurisdictional right to apply the rules of international public
policy. Judgment of Mar. 29, 1991, Societe Ganz v. Societe Nationale des Chemin de Fers Tunisiens, Cour dappel
de Paris, Revue de Larbitral 478 (1991) (Fr.). (cited in Thomas E. Carbonneau & Francois Janson, Cartesian Logic
And Frontier Politics: French And American Concepts Of Arbitrability, 2 TUL. J. INT 'L & COMP . L. 193, 217 (1994)
(Essay)). A few U.S. courts have reached similar results, again with little explanation. See Forsythe Int'l, S.A. v.
Gibbs Oil Co. of Texas, 915 F.2d 1017, 1023 n. 8 (5th Cir.1990) (Arbitrators may ... devise appropriate sanctions
for abuse of the arbitration process.); Bigge Crane & Rigging Co. v. Docutel Corp., 371 F.Supp. 240, 246
(E.D.N.Y.1973) ([A]rbitrators ... may be able to devise sanctions if they find that [a party] has impeded or
complicated their task by refusing to cooperate in pretrial disclosure of relevant matters). Similarly, the ICTFY has
assumed, since its inception, the power to sanction attorneys for misconduct:
A power in the Tribunal to punish conduct which tends to obstruct, prejudice or abuse its administration of
justice is a necessity in order to ensure that its exercise of the jurisdiction which is expressly given to it by its Statute
is not frustrated and that its basic judicial functions are safeguarded. Thus the power to deal with contempt is clearly
within its inherent jurisdiction. That is not to say that the Tribunals powers to deal with contempt or conduct
interfering with the administration of justice are in every situation the same as those possessed by domestic courts,
because its jurisdiction as an international court must take into account its different setting within the basic structure
of the international community.
See Prosecutor v. Dusko Tadic, 31 Jan. 2000, http://www.un.org/icty/tadic/appeal/judgement/vujaj000131e.htm.
133

Another analogy that is useful to understanding what is really stake in granting a
sanction power is that arbitrators already undoubtedly have the power to issue a default award
when a party or their counsel refuse to submit to arbitral jurisdiction or participate in an
arbitration. A default award is a means for proceeding in the absence of a party, but can also be
viewed as a sanction for refusing to participate in an adjudication.475 When arbitral rules become
incorporated by reference into the parties agreement, parties are contractually obligated to abide
by the arbitral rules.476
Failure to abide by arbitral rules, like failure to abide by any other
contractual obligation, could give rise to a claim for damages for breach, even if parties rarely
assert such claims.477 Because a claim alleging misconduct by an attorney would arise out of the
arbitration agreement, under most arbitration clauses arbitrators would have jurisdiction to
adjudicate the claim.
The debate over an arbitrator sanction power is, therefore, not so much about
whether to endow them with a new power as it is about whether to acknowledge and validate
their use of existing powers.
In the context of domestic arbitration there might be less to
recommend acquiescing to private regulation of attorney conduct, since local bar associations
provide a ready alternative for regulating attorneys.
In the international context, however, the
unique need for a politically neutral forum and the unique absence of any alternative means of
regulation may warrant that states reconsider their historic reluctance based on these symbolic
475
See Bitzko v. Gamache, 168 A.D. 888 (1990).

See supra note 377.
477
From my practical experience, the only such claims I saw were allegations that a party had failed to
engage in good faith negotiations, as required by the agreement as a predicate to commencing arbitration. Since it is
nearly impossible to assess whether a party engaged in settlement negotiations in good faith such allegations were
used more as an attempt to disparage the opponent than as an assertion of a substantive claim. The most likely
reason why there are no reported cases alleging breach of an arbitration agreement is that default awards and awards
of costs and fees usually satisfy harm done by recalcitrant parties.
476
134

concerns. Given the recent strides in national arbitration legislation, particularly in the area of
resolving cultural differences,478 it seems plausible that national reluctance toward arbitrator
exercise of public functions can be similarly overcome.
3. The Tumult Caused by Overlapping Ethical Norms
One final area of concern that will need to be worked through is determining the
perimeters of arbitration ethics and arbitrators sanction power in relation to national ethical
rules.
The lifespan of an individual case typically involves pre-dispute representation and
appearances in national courts,479 as well as participation in arbitral proceedings.
When
precisely will the proposed arbitral ethics apply and how will their conflicts with national
ethical regimes be resolved?480
Contributing to this problem, it is likely that misconduct in a
case could be discovered after the close of arbitral proceedings. Is it better to reconvene the
arbitral tribunal, or leave national courts (or bar associations) with the task of investigating party
conduct during past arbitral proceedings?
Although these may be difficult questions to resolve,
they are not unlike the problems that are present in any cross-jurisdictional practice.
Whenever attorneys appear in a jurisdiction other than the one they are licensed
in, they are ethically obliged to investigate and abide by the ethical regulations of the new
jurisdiction.
At a more general level, professionals are often required to adopt different
478
See Pieter Sanders, Quo Vadis Arbitration?: Sixty Years of PracticeA Comparative Study 24 (1999).
Even before the enforcement stage, parties to an arbitration often end up in court for a number of
reasons, including challenges to the validity of an arbitration clause, challenges to the arbitrability of a dispute,
requests for interim relief, requests for assistance in procuring discovery, and appeals of interim awards. See Henry
P. DeVries, International Commercial Arbitration: A Contractual Substitute for National Courts, 57 TUL. L. REV.
42, at 47 n.21. (1982).
479
480
This problem is complicated by the possibility that parties can modify the ethical rules at some point
after they are binding on the attorneys.
135

standards of behavior in different contexts or when performing different functions.481 Attorneys
may be initially reluctant to act in ways that are permissible in international arbitration but are
prohibited in their home jurisdictions.
For example, it has been observed that arbitrators who
hail from jurisdictions in which it is impermissible for arbitrators to administer an oath are
reluctant to put witnesses under oath, even if the arbitration is being conducted in a place where
local law authorizes arbitrators to administer oaths.482
Similarly, attorneys hailing from civil law
jurisdictions may be reluctant to talk to witnesses before they take the stand, even if they know
the opposing counsel is.
The difficulty in shifting roles may be understandable, particularly for
those lawyers who only occasionally dabble with international matters. For those whose role as
international advocate or arbitrator is a primary occupation, however, an understanding of the
shifting of their roles in different contexts and an ability to comply with international ethical
norms must be part of what defines their professional competence.483
IV.
Conclusion
Arbitration is a highly effective and popular form of international dispute
resolution, but it is also a rather fragile one. The functioning of the entire system depends on
party confidence (to select arbitration) and national court accreditation (to enforce arbitration
agreements and awards). With expanding global markets, law is an ever more important tool for
481
See Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Ethics in Mediation Representation: A Road Map of Critical Issues, DISP .
RESOL. MAG., Winter 1997, at 3 (discussing whether a different set of ethical rules for lawyers involved in the
mediation context is necessary and desirable).
482
See CRAIG, INTERNATIONAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE A RBITRATION, supra note 101, at 25.2, p.398.
483
See Goebel, supra note 17, at 448 (The lawyer in international transactions is . . . an interpreter of
systems and habits of thought with a responsibility for bridging the gulf of disparate national experiences, traditions,
institutions, and customs.) (quoting Ball, The Lawyers Role in International Transactions, 11 Record of A. of Bar
of City of N.Y. 61 (Feb. 1956); Michael J. Malony & Allison Taylor Blizzard, Ethical Issues in the Context of
International Litigation: Where Angels Fear to Tread, 36 S. TEX. L. REV. 933 (1995) (describing how in
international litigation a lawyers duties to the client are more demanding because of added complexities in
136

mediating trade when parties lack common culture.484
Even when they belong to different
national professions, lawyers share a common professional culture and can make vital
contributions to the development of international dispute resolution through, among other things,
the development of an international ethical regime.485
Invariably, adherence to an international, private code of ethics will meet with
some resistance, much like arbitration itself confronted as it sought to establish itself as a form of
private justice.486 National courts eventually agreed to let parties privately settle their contract
disputes through arbitration.
They may be more reluctant, however, to relegate to the private
realm a subject that is so encrusted with moral connotation, it is believed to enshrine the very
dignity of the law.487
But with international trade increasing, and no viable alternatives for
attorney regulation available, that reluctance must be overcome.
Arguably, the principle
challenge facing international commercial arbitration is promoting predictability in the conduct

and administration of arbitral proceedings.488
Without articulated, enforceable ethical norms,
everything from accepting referrals, to setting a fee, to competent understanding of foreign law, to communicating
with foreign clients to issues regarding consent and payment logistics for settlement.).
484
See Richard L. Abel & Phillip S.C. Lewis, Putting Law Back into the Sociology of Lawyers, in
LAWYERS IN SOCIETY, VOLUME THREE, supra note 23.
485
See id. The value of contributions to the methodologies of international adjudication is increasing
because the number of international courts and tribunals has increased dramatically over the past several years. The
New York University Journal of International Law and Politics dedicated an entire symposium issue to the subject.
See, e.g., Benedict Kingsbury, Foreward: Is the Proliferation of International Courts and Tribunals a Systematic
Problem?, 31 N.Y.U.J. INT L L. & POL. 679 (1999).
486
For a description of the historical hostility toward arbitration, see supra notes 32-37, and accompanying
text.
487
See H. Richard Uviller, The Advocate, the Truth, and Judicial Hackles: A Reaction to Judge Frankels
Idea, 123 U. PA. L. REV. 1067, 1067 (1975).
488
See M ARTIN DOMKE, COMMERCIAL A RBITRATION 14 (1965) (cited in Philip J. McConnaughay, The
Risks and Virtues of Lawlessness: A Second Look at International Commercial Arbitration, 93 NW . U. L. REV.
453, 458 & n.22 (1999)). Admittedly, this predilection for predictability and codification may be more appealing to
Western interests. See Philip J. McConnaughay, The Risks and Virtues of Lawlessness: A Second Look at
International Commercial Arbitration, 93 NW . U. L. REV. 453, 458 & n.22 (1999) (arguing that the goal of legal
predictability is not shared in Asia and much of the developing world).
137

this goal cannot be attained.489
489
See infra Part II.C. for an analysis of why methodologies for developing ethical norms cannot produce a
code that will accommodate the special needs of international commercial arbitration.
138

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Between Cultural Boundaries and Legal Traditions: Ethics in

Research Paper No. 06-01

This paper may be downloaded without charge at :

DRAFT--Do Not Cite

Between Cultural Boundaries and Legal Traditions:

International commercial arbitration dwells in an ethical no-mans land. Often by

Arbitral tribunals have no legitimate power to sanction,5 and specialized ethical

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As a predicate, in Part I, I assess the reasons why ethical regulation is needed in

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There is a pervasive myth that broad consensus exists among the

I will demonstrate that in fact the apparent

As the field of players continues to expand, these divergences will become

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This approach focuses on the

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National ethical regimes impose on lawyers professional obligations that

The functional approach demonstrates that ethical regimes must be

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The content of norms for

international arbitration, therefore, must be developednot from national norms or abstract

The rules must be integrated into the

I outline in Part III an

This approach will make their

application the product of party agreement and subject to party modification.

See infra section III.B.

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The Need for Enforceable Ethical Norms in International Commercial Arbitration

disputes is a relatively recent phenomenon.

Despite its ancient history,24 up through the mid-

See infra section III.D.

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Arbitration agreements were routinely

Only by virtue of domestic courts respect for principles of international comity

were arbitral awards enforced at all. 28

International commercial arbitration holds an

exalted status 29 and is commonly revered as vital to world trade.30

Any nation interested in

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International commercial arbitration has transformed itself from a

bastard remedy into the crown prince of international dispute resolution.

A. The Reformulation of International Arbitration

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In applying the lex mercatorias requirement of

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DRAFTPlease Do Not Cite

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open-textured and subject to

Arbitral awards are being published with greater frequency

Moreover, the lex

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As a consequence, its aspiration cannot be simply to provide ad hoc

remedial relief in individual cases.

It must develop into a fully operational transnational