How Can the Battle Be Averted? An Introduction

• Date: 01 December 2016
• Published date: 01 December 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/crq.21188

C R Q, vol. 34, no. 2, Winter 2016 113

© 2016 Association for Conf‌l ict Resolution and Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) • DOI: 10.1002/crq.21188

GUEST EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION

How Can the Battle Be Averted? An Introduction

Katia Fach Gómez

M anuel A. Gómez

T he last two decades have witnessed an upsurge in the promotion and

use of international arbitration mainly for commercial and investment

disputes. Arbitration is not new. In fact, its existence preceded the modern

states, including their courts, and the rest of the of‌f‌i cial legal system.  ere

is evidence of arbitration having been used as early as 2250 BC (Fan 2013 ),

and certain trading groups and merchant communities have relied almost

exclusively on private arbitration for centuries (Gómez 2013 ). Over time,

both domestic and international arbitration became promoted and insti-

tutionalized by multilateral organizations like the World Bank (WB) and

the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), which led to its further

expansion throughout the world. Most of the promotion ef‌f orts occurred

during the 1990s when the WB, IADB, and similar entities included arbi-

tration and other alternative dispute resolution mechanisms as key compo-

nents of their judicial reform agendas, and required borrowing countries

to modernize their legislation to incorporate them.  e institutionalization

of arbitration has happened through the enactment of statutes and rules

governing dif‌f erent aspects of arbitration and the launching of arbitration

centers.

At the forefront of this global development—at least in the commercial

realm—is the Paris-based International Court of Arbitration of the Inter-

national Chamber of Commerce (ICC Arbitration Court), which by 2015

had a case portfolio worth US$286 billion. Since its establishment in 1923,

the ICC Arbitration Court has managed more than twenty thousand cases

involving parties and arbitrators from more than 190 countries.  ere are

other arbitral institutions with tradition in the United States, Europe, Asia,