What Growing Global Polarization Means for Cooperation in International Arbitration

By Kaley Gilbert, Senior Staffer Increasing global conflict challenges international arbitration’s ability to successfully settle commercial disputes. Arbitration depends on cooperation.  But the polarization associated with growing global conflict, ranging from active conflicts such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the cold conflict between the United States and China, challenges the norms and practices that…

Silencing Gig Workers: Arbitration and Misclassification in the Gig Economy

By: Jacqueline Vanacore, Senior Staffer The rise of the gig economy, accompanied by the proliferation of mandatory arbitration agreements requiring gig workers to waive their rights to litigation, has not only hindered gig workers’ ability to resolve workplace disputes but, in the absence of a statutory framework, has contributed to their struggle to be classified…

Will Arbitration Lead to an Increase in Energy Investment in Ecuador?

BY: BENIN LEE; JUNIOR STAFFER In 2022, the International Energy Agency released a statement claiming that the world may in fact be in the middle of its first true “global energy crisis” based on the dwindling supply of major oil producers. The crisis, along with the push toward the expansion of clean sources of energy,…

The Complex World of International Arbitration and Eventual Enforcement

Recently, in a decision issued by the Court of Justice of the European Union, in the case of Slovak Republic v. Achmea, intra-EU bilateral investment treaties’ (“BIT”) arbitration clauses were declared to be in violation of governing European Union (“EU”) law and therefore illegal. The court stated “that the arbitration clause in the BIT [between Slovakia and the…

Amy Coney Barrett on Arbitration: Solidifying a Pro-Business SCOTUS

Sworn into the Supreme Court on October 27, 2020, the third Supreme Court nominee from President Donald Trump is poised to set a conservative supermajority on the highest court. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a judge from the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, took the seat vacated by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who had passed away on September…