The Practice of International Commercial Arbitration
Module code: LW7267
Please note: this module is assessed via an in-person exam.
This module builds on the formal knowledge of international commercial arbitration that you will have gained in the first term International Commercial Arbitration module, and focuses instead on arbitration as a field of legal practice. In doing so, it combines theoretical and practical discussion, considering questions such as how arbitration markets in different jurisdictions are structured, how arbitration communities operate, how to enter arbitration practice, the roles of arbitral institutions, and how the practicalities of arbitration procedures and hearings differ around the work. This will enable students to deepen their understanding of how arbitration works, and why the practices have developed that currently dominate the field, thereby giving you a deeper understanding of the field than is possible from a course concentrating solely on the legal structure of international commercial arbitration.
As the goal of the module is to assist you in learning to think about arbitration, rather than merely learn technicalities of the law, the module will be assessed through what can be called a 'part-seen exam'. At the conclusion of teaching, you will receive a list of essay questions that might appear on the final exam (e.g. 10-12 questions). This will allow you to focus your study on those questions, and on thinking about the issues those questions address, rather than attempting to memorise everything discussed in the module. The exam, which will be in-person, will then consist of a selection of the previously issued questions (e.g. 3 of them). You will not be told in advance which specific questions will be on the exam, but every question on the exam will have been on the list distributed at the end of teaching.