Interview with Gary B. Born on International Commercial Arbitration - 2nd edition

today we are here in London interviewing Gary Bourne on his upcoming book international commercial arbitration second edition gary is the chair of the international arbitration practice group here at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and door LLP he has been ranked for the past 20 years among the world's leading international arbitration practitioners Mr Vaughan has published a number of leading works on international arbitration international litigation and other forms of dispute resolution one of his books is international commercial arbitration published by Kluwer in 2009 which has received the American Society of international laws certificate of merit for high technical craftsmanship and Oda mids book of the Year award for 2009 a new edition of this book is about to be published next month which is the reason for this interview could you describe your practice for us lawyers always love to talk about their their professional practices and I guess I'm no exception in in that regard it's a mix of international commercial arbitration on the one hand and investment and state to state arbitration on the other hand it tends to involve high-stakes disputes between large companies and and governments although in a fair number of cases we also represent individuals and smaller businesses for years you've been one of the leading international arbitration practitioners so how do you stay on top all that time it was mostly due to my my colleagues and my friends obviously one doesn't arrive at any particular position like that without enormous support and friendship professional support and personal friendships and without that I wouldn't have had any of those accolades that you mentioned at the outset now you're also a professor at the University of st. Gallen in international arbitration and you also lecture at universities in the US and China in Harvard and Beijing so how do you combine this with your practice it's not always easy and sometimes the answer is you don't sleeeeep terribly much but in in practical terms arbitration international arbitration especially often involves a number of international law issues and has a lot of close relationships with academic study and what I've tried to do and frankly other practitioners in the field have have done the same is to blend academic pursuit on the one hand with our practice activities on the other seemed from the opposite perspective a number of academics actually do the same thing they're active in consulting and in practice as well as they're purely academic pursuits I think it's one of the real strengths of the field actually I think that the academic study of international arbitration international dispute resolution law is informed enormous lis by practical pursuits and at the same time the academic efforts helped to build a growing body of international arbitration law in a way that makes the system work better for everybody okay and can you tell us which part of your job in particular that you prefer is it representing clients sitting as an arbitrator writing or teaching they're all they're all wonderful and it's it's very difficult to choose among among those various hats that that one wears I guess if I had to pick one out of out of that entire list it would it would be acting as as counsel there's a kind of stimulus that comes from standing up in front of a tribunal or sitting in front of a tribunal as the case may be and persuading them of one point or another a kind of stimulus that comes from representing a party a particular individual or a come or a state in a dispute that's fundamentally important to it and getting it a good result which although academics and although sitting as an arbitrator and although the other professional things I do are are tremendous and wonderful they don't they don't really quite match what comes the reward that comes from actually getting a good result for someone and obviously being a very very busy professional where do you find the time to write I think I alluded to it a moment ago unfortunately it often means not sleeping quite as much as as I'd like to the real answer is you just you you have to have a passion for the scholarship as well as for representing parties and other aspects of professional life and if you do have that passion then the time that you the time that you put into writing doesn't really feel like time that you spent but time that you've been given now most of your titles are published by Wolters Kluwer so what's your experience of publishing with waters clear they've been a tremendous publisher needless to say they provide a unique forum I think especially for international arbitration practitioners the Kluwer arbitration blog Kluwer arbitration library the Hickey yearbooks and the other resources that they provide for practitioners for academics for courts national courts around the world are extraordinarily important and they provide they've provided me a tremendous platform for both my publications but also frankly for my research there in many ways the first place that I go when when I need to find the answer to something and can you test what other supplementary information can an arbitration practitioner get to gain a more in-depth understanding there are a variety of publications and increasingly online services that that both Kluwer and others offer in the international dispute resolution space and clear arbitration blog I think is tremendous like like clue arbitration and there are other resources as well as the many commentaries and periodicals arbitration international for example that are published in the field now we have to say congratulations on your upcoming second edition of international commercial arbitration it's received some great reviews which will be shown at the end of the interview but for now can you tell us why is second edition the second edition comes now in 2014 which is it's hard to hard to believe but five years since the publication of my first edition in in 2009 and I feel a little bit unfaithful in a way by replacing the the two volume edition from 2009 with with something new but the truth of the matter is the world has moved on since since 2009 there have been a number of important legislative developments a number of practice developments a whole slew of judicial decisions in important jurisdictions around around the world to some extent the second edition takes those those into account and updates the the previous work that I'd done in another sense though the second edition I think moves on and attempts to fulfill the promises of the first edition in terms of development of the common law of international commercial arbitration it attempts to to articulate in more detail a number of the issues that that are already addressed in in the 2009 first edition and I think readers when when they they come to buy the second edition will will see the substantial expansion that that has taken place and the new edition is now three volumes so can you describe for us the content of each volume sure the the three volumes basically follow the the three parts that that existed in in the first edition the FIR our deals with international arbitration agreements and addresses hopefully what any reader would would want to know about an international commercial arbitration agreement just by way of example it looks at questions of separable 'ti choice of law formation and validity non-signatories non arbitrability and the like the the second part which is now a second volume is international arbitration procedures and it looks at the procedural content of and procedural conduct of an international commercial arbitration it looks at the legal framework for international arbitrations it looks at questions about the selection of the arbitral seat the selection of the arbitrator's the procedures that are actually used in practice in arbitration beginning from the start of an arbitration and going right through to to the making of an award and it also looks at questions of conflicts of law choice of law choice of substantive law in an international arbitration and finally part 3 of the second edition which is now its own volume the third volume addresses international arbitral awards and it looks at form and content of awards it looks at annulment as well as correction and interpretation and finally it looks at the questions of recognition and enforcement before it turns to issues of preclusion and race judicata okay so why should people have this new updated Edition people should have the new book for the same reason that they they had the original book it it attempts to comprehensively address all of the issues that might arise in an international commercial arbitration it attempts to do that systematically and to consider objectively and neutrally every issue that might arise in an international commercial arbitration I have my own viewpoints on on those questions I should say that those viewpoints sometimes change I mentioned in the introduction to the first edition and I repeat in the introduction to the second edition that this is still a work in progress and will be after the second edition I've made mistakes I made mistakes in the first edition and hopefully I found all of those probably probably just some of them but it's an ongoing work in progress just the way that international commercial arbitration and its framework is itself a work in progress and hopefully the future editions third and fourth when you back to talk to me in the future we'll have have caught many of those mistakes which I'm sure will be there but but the the goal is to to stay in touch with the developments in international arbitration and to help point towards future developments in the field and for you which part of the book are you most excited by the part of the book that I love the entire book of course but the part of the book that I'm that I'm most excited by always have been is the effort to develop a constitutional framework for international commercial arbitration one sees that throughout all three parts to the two this edition has a lot to the first edition but the effort is to use the New York Convention as well as the Lin Sutra model law to develop in more detail the framework for international commercial arbitration I understand that your book will also be available in electronic format is that correct it is one will be able to find it on Kluwer arbitration and there will also be a new e-book edition with a number of specialized search features which at least as they've been demonstrated to me will really make make the resources in the book a good deal more accessible to to its users as well as I think to its author who is the target audience for this book ideally everybody ideally you will be seeing this at WH Smith in Heathrow and other airports around the world it is aimed at practitioners academics national court judges in-house counsel and students the idea behind the book is to provide a single resource in which people that want to know something about arbitration will be certain they'll find and can you tell us when the books going to be available and promise next month okay excellent now that you're finalizing the new edition of a three-volume work are you happy that you now have more time for other activities or are you working on updating some of your other books the next book in line is my international arbitration case book which is published by Aspen in the United States one of the clues affiliates and I'm hoping to get that out later this year excellent well Gary thank you so much for your interview here today and for having us here thank you very much thank you you can now buy a copy of international commercial arbitration second edition at clara law calm you

Channel: Wolters Kluwer International Group

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Keywords: International Commercial Arbitration, Gary Born, Arbitration (Field Of Study), International Arbitration, Treatise, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale And Dorr (Business Operation), Wolters Kluwer (Business Operation), Litigation, Interview, Book

Id: soafLup0rOA

Length: 14min 16sec (856 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 05 2014