Supreme Court Case Law on Arbitration through a Restatement Lens
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
3-2025
Abstract
In the United States, arbitration – international and interstate alike – is a federal law subject. However, the U.S. law governing international arbitration is based on a century-old statute, the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), which has not been meaningfully amended since its enactment nearly 100 years ago, except for the addition of two chapters, implementing the New York and Panama Conventions on the recognition and enforcement of international arbitral awards. As such, it has not kept up with the profound changes that have taken place over this period, much less responded to the countless questions that make their way to the courts.
The U.S. law of international arbitration is thus the accretion of judicial decisions rendered over an exceptionally long period. The great bulk of the cases making their way to the courts concern three subjects: (a) enforcement of agreements to arbitrate, (b) involvement of U.S. courts in the conduct of arbitral proceedings, and (c) post-award actions either for the annulment or the enforcement of an arbitral award. It goes nearly without saying that the burden of developing international arbitration law falls chiefly to the federal district courts and the courts of appeal and that the resulting case law is less than systematic or comprehensive. Moreover, only an exceedingly small fraction of international arbitration cases ever make their way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Disciplines
Dispute Resolution and Arbitration | International Law | Law
Recommended Citation
George A. Bermann,
Supreme Court Case Law on Arbitration through a Restatement Lens,
U.S. Supreme Court Precedents on Arbitration: Shaping the American Arbitration Law and Practice, Kabir Duggal, Yasmine Lahlou, Carlos Alberto Carmona & Gustavo Favero Vaughn (Eds.), Brill
(2025).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/4722