They recognize that some answers are better than others, even if perfection proves elusive. In examining the competing views of reality proposed by each side, arbitrators aim to get as near as reasonably possible to a correct picture of those disputed events, words, and legal norms that bear consequences for the litigants’ claims and defences. The present essay explores this last line of inquiry, looking at how truth-seeking balances against sensitivity to speed and economy in arbitration.Īccuracy in arbitration means something other than absolute truth as it might exist in the eyes of an omniscient God. At some point, the additional enlightenment to be gleaned from more information will be offset by the value of finality and economy. Examining documents and listening to witness testimony will cost time and money. In the common law tradition such communications implicate rules of evidence intended, albeit in part, to enhance the prospect of reaching a correct conclusion.įinally, a view from the hilltop (somewhere between the trenches and the Alpine peaks) looks at how goals other than truth-seeking enter the equation. This vista includes the art of advocacy and tools to persuade decision-makers that one view of the case has more merit than another. With varying degrees of sincerity, thinkers since antiquity have asked, ‘What is truth?’ 3īy contrast, lawyers in the litigation trenches consider ways that rival versions of truth influence the judges, juries and arbitrators who decide cases. A panoramic perspective from 6,000 meters (20,000 feet for American alpinists) might examine reality in an abstract way. Several levels of inquiry present themselves. 2 Yet truth-seeking lies at the core of what arbitration is about, and cannot long be avoided in any serious discussion of the subject.
Often underrated or misjudged, truth has dispatched more than one mind beneath the intellectual storm waves of a giant analytic sea, and anyone venturing to explore its contours must do so with fear and trembling. In deciding disputes accurately, arbitrators promote the type of promise-keeping that underpins the positive economic teamwork that marries public and private welfare. Like historians, arbitrators normally focus on things as they were, seeking the most reliable account of the controverted events giving rise to the claims.
A poet can say things as they ought to have been, whereas the historian must write things as they were. In response, a young scholar suggests two different ways to view the world. After all, he adds, Virgil embellished the piety of Aeneas just as Homer enhanced the wisdom of Odysseus. At one point in the story, the Don objects to narratives of his defeats, arguing that heroes deserve praise, not scorn. A Moorish enchanter had recorded the Don’s adventures, defeats and victories. Often called the first European novel, Don Quijote de la Mancha weaves together the idealistic quests of a slightly delusional Spanish gentleman who saw himself as a knight errant long after the age of chivalry had ended.
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