The ‘End of History’ and International Arbitration: An Empirical Study on the Civil v. Common Law Divide

When lawyers speak of comparative law, they mostly think of the ‘civil’ and the ‘common law’ − two legal traditions that are widely viewed as isolated from one another. In the realm of international arbitration, however, these traditions inevitably collide. Accordingly, authors have rightly referred to arbitration as a ‘real-life laboratory for the development of a procedural Esperanto’. But much of the academic work emerging from this laboratory seems to draw primarily on anecdote and the authors’ personal experiences. This paper moves beyond such anecdotal approaches and examines the alleged civil v. common law divide empirically. Based on generative interviews with twenty-six of the world’s ‘most in demand’ arbitrators, it concludes that, within international arbitration, significant differences between civil and common law have largely faded over time. By contrast, experienced international arbitrators apply a de facto ‘Uniform Code of Arbitral Procedure’. Exploring the content of this framework − and borrowing from Francis Fukuyama’s famous theory − the article argues that international arbitration today has reached its own ‘End of History’. That is, the common law − including many of its typical features − has triumphed and now represents the dominant approach in international arbitration.