an excerpt from ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION 2001 EDITION
published by the llinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education
© 2001 by Stephen E. Smith
While it is important to note the scope of this chapter, it is equally important to indicate what it is not. This chapter assumes that the reader has a working knowledge of domestic (one country) ADR from reading the other chapters of this book. Accordingly, this chapter deals with domestic categories of arbitration and mediation only in comparison to their international counterparts. In that regard, while domestic ADR is readily accepted as a convenient and economical alternative to litigation, particularly in the United States, many observers see it as essential in the international setting. Sophisticated business people are usually apprehensive about submitting their commercial disputes to the particular procedures of unfamiliar court systems. International companies tend to favor a consensual process in which, at least until the submission of the matter to an arbitral forum or ad hoc panel, they have the ability to resolve the dispute themselves or with the assistance of negotiation, mediation or conciliation, unfettered by rules of an institutionalized national court system. There are, of course, exceptions to the benefits of international ADR; there are occasions when resort to courts, even of other nations, is preferable. All of these approaches and only theses approaches are treated in this Chapter.