ABSTRACT
Disputes are considered almost inevitable in international trade and cross-border investment. In theory, a dispute may be resolved in two different ways. A party may decide to take legal action against the counterpart and leave the whole matter to the decision of a court judge, or one may decide to settle the dispute through alternative forms of dispute resolutions, be they conciliation, mediation or arbitration. Furthermore, a party may decide to try some form of amicable settlement and then, if this proves to be unsatisfactory, to opt for litigation. Indeed, litigating cross-border business disputes in national courts presents an array of problems connected to different legal systems, such as common law and civil law. As far as international trade is concerned, arbitration has turned out to be the most popular way of resolving disputes, even though evidence shows that it has become too similar to litigation (Nariman 2000; Stipanovich 2008).
