Preliminary On International Commercial Arbitration Culture

"International commercial arbitration culture" discussed in this thesis has two implications: one is the "cultural elements underlying international commercial arbitration", and the other is the "cultural results of international commercial arbitration".The "cultural elements underlying international commercial arbitration" are diversified. Every county or region has its unique culture and legal culture. Diversified cultural elements lead to diversified attitudes toward international commercial arbitration and diversified understandings or expectations on its specific procedures.The "cultural result of international commercial arbitration" is somewhat unified. The actors in international commercial arbitration are forming shared culture through their extended shared practice. To be specific, this process include the spread of pro-arbitration attitude throughout the world, the broadening of the consensus on the core values and principles of international commercial arbitration, the harmonization of the expectations on arbitration procedures.This thesis is divided in three chapters. The first chapter is designed for an introduction on the implications and characteristics of "international commercial arbitration culture." The second chapter presents a description on the disparity between civil law legal culture and common law legal culture on their basic attitudes toward arbitration and expectations on arbitration procedures. This chapter also deliberates on the trend of harmonization between the two main legal cultures in this area. The last chapter analyses the arbitration tradition in some other cultures such as Latin American culture and Arabian culture, which are on the "brink" of the world. In the end of the last chapter, it is pointed out that the traditional culture of China is basically opposing the development of the spirit of modern arbitration, but nowadays China is actively joining into the international commercial arbitration culture. What we need is to spread, strengthen, and realize the spirit of "party autonomy" and constrain the government-centered tendency, which is the greatest enemy to the development of arbitration.