Search for Truth in Arbitration: Is Finding the Truth What Dispute Resolution Is About - ASA Special

This volume of the ASA Special Series contains the written version of the presentations given at the ASA 2009 Annual Conference on "The Search for "Truth" in Arbitration: Is finding the Truth what Dispute Resolution is about?" This volume explores the role and the relevance of "truth" in dispute resolution and specifically in commercial arbitration; the different notions of truth in different legal cultures; the users' view in that respect; and the consequences of these different perspectives and approaches for the practice of international arbitration. Part one provides the "philosophical" background to the subsequent discussions of some practical issues from the perspective of the users of arbitration services as well as of the providers of these services, arbitrators and counsel. Next, two practical issues that have for a long time been a hot topic in commercial arbitration practice, cross-examination and document production, are expolored from different perspectives. Finally formalism in arbitral proceedings is discussed – is formalism good or evil? It has been concluded that formal requirements should never be handled in a way that would hinder a tribunal or a court from accomplishing the main task with which it was entrusted either by the parties or by the State: applying the substantive law to the issues before them and finding a just and fair solution to the parties' dispute. The presentations published in this volume of the ASA Special Series will contribute to the discussion of the ever intriguing question "Is Finding the "Truth" what Dispute Resolution is about?"