Dealing in Virtue: International Commercial Arbitration and the Construction of a Transnational Legal Order - Language & Legal Discourse S. 1996 (Hardback)

In recent years, international business disputes have been resolved through private arbitration. Yves Dezalay and Bryant G. Garth seek to show in this text how an elite, transnational legal profession has emerged to construct an autonomous legal field that now plays a central role in the global marketplace. Building on the structural approach of Bourdieu, they show how an informal, settlement-oriented system became formalized, litigious, and expensive. An integral aspect of this new legal field is the intense competition among arbitrators to gain reputations for virtue in order to be selected for adjudication panels. Examples from England, the United States, Sweden, Egypt, and Hong Kong are used throughout the volume.