The Comparative Constitutional Foundations of Private-Public Arbitration

This book engages with the concerns the rising phenomenon of arbitrations between private and public actors raises for principles of constitutional law - including democracy, the rule of law, and the protection of fundamental rights. It analyses how party-appointed, one-off arbitral tribunals determine the delineation of private rights and public interests within a transnational legal environment and provides a framework that aligns this activity with constitutional values.

Featuring 20 chapters dealing with almost 40 jurisdictions from different corners of the world, the book examines how domestic legal systems and legal practice approach the involvement of public entities as parties to arbitration agreements and arbitration proceedings, to what extent the constitutional legal frameworks involved problematize private-public arbitration as a constitutional concern, and how different domestic legal systems ensure that private-public arbitration conforms to, and avoids undermining, the public interest. The chapters analyse, inter alia, whether the governing domestic law treats private-public arbitration differently from commercial arbitration between private parties, to what extent domestic law permits such arbitrations, what regulatory frameworks domestic law sets up, and what control mechanisms domestic law establishes in order to ensure that the public interest is safeguarded when public entities agree to have disputes resolved through arbitration rather than in domestic courts.

Stephan W. Schill, Professor of International and Economic Law and Governance, University of Amsterdam

Stephan W. Schill is Professor of International and Economic Law and Governance at the University of Amsterdam, where he headed the European Research Council-funded research project ’Transnational Public-Private Arbitration as Global Regulatory Governance’. He is admitted to the bar in Germany and New York, is a Member of the ICSID List of Conciliators, and regularly acts as arbitrator in investor-state arbitrations. He also serves as General Editor of ICCA Publications and has published widely on international investment law, investor-state dispute settlement, general international law, EU law, and comparative public law.