Overstating the Americanization of International Arbitration: Lessons from ICSID

The observation that international commercial arbitration has become "Americanized"' raises more questions than it answers. For example, what does Americanized mean? Americanization suggests international arbitration is akin to dispute resolution in the United States. For some non-Americans, the observation has normative consequences; it means "unbridled and ungentlemanly" conduct or a strategy of "total warfare."Can the American process fit into a neat and simple descriptive box in which winning at all costs is the ultimate goal? No. The conduct of American lawyers varies from one part of the United States to the next, if not among individual members of the bar.