Text, Context, and Applicable Law: Arbitral Decision- Making?
Arbitrators often confront a text/context duality in interpreting contracts. The applicable law may impose the adoption of one approach over the other - e.g., New York-textualist versus California-contextualist. However, whether unimposed or even imposed, leeway remains, and an arbitrator’s unstated (and perhaps unconscious) philosophy of language is the hidden hand in the interpretive action. Divining “ordinary meaning,” and thereby “intention,” is the art and the frustration. In the webinar, it will be suggested that arbitrators should try to examine — openly — that hidden hand. Moreover, in doing so, they should consider whether approaches to the interpretation of texts in other disciplines, including the use of corpus linguistics (as promoted by Thomas Lee/Stephen Mouritsen), would improve arbitral decision-making.