The immunity of arbitrators is a difficult issue and one of some topicality. As readers will doubtless be aware, English law for a considerable period of time proceeded on the assumption that public policy demanded that arbitrators, by analogy with judges, be immune from suit for negligence in carrying out their functions. This is still almost definitely the position the law adopts, but a degree of uncertainty has been introduced by certain remarks made by Lord Kilbrandon, and to a lesser extent by Lords Fraser and Salmon, in their speeches in Arenson v. Arenson [1977] A.C. 405. Thus the unhappy position arises that, although there is very little doubt that arbitrators possess immunity, a significant number of arbitrators feel the need to insure themselves against potential liability, while bodies such as the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and the London Maritime Arbitration Association advise their members to take out such cover. The Departmental Advisory Committee on Arbitration Law in its Second Report (May 1990) considered the question whether statute should confer immunity on arbitrators, but decided (p. 9) by a “substantial” majority that there was no need for such a provision. At the same time the privately sponsored proposed new Arbitration Act does contain just such a provision. Meanwhile, the Discussion Paper (May 1990) of the Scottish Advisory Committee (The Operation of Arbitration in Scotland in light of the UNCITRAL Model Law, (para. 4.3.) invites views “as to whether any statutory provisions in relation to immunity are necessary or desirable and if so what their nature should be”. (It is worthy of note that the framers of the Model Law agreed not to address the issue of arbitral immunity due to its “controversial” nature.)

This book is thus timely. Its origins lie in the 1987 Conference of the European Users’ Council of the London Court of International Arbitration, where it emerged, first, that the issue of arbitral immunity was far from clear in a variety of legal systems and, secondly, to quote from Sir Michael Kerr’s Foreword, that, “while there was a good deal of material which was relevant to these topics, it had never been collated”. The book then offers a view of the position taken on the subject of arbitral immunity in a number of different jurisdictions, Argentina, Australia, Austria, England, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the U.S. The matter is also considered in relation to various forms of institutional arbitration, i.e., American Arbitration Association arbitration, ICSID arbitration and GAFTA arbitration. Clearly a wide range of jurisdictions is covered. Many more are not and, while this could not fail to be the case unless the work were to be of monumental size, there are obviously certain areas of the world (e.g., the Middle East and Eastern Europe) which are not represented but which might have yielded some interesting contrasts. Equally, one may wonder why the three examples of institutional arbi-