Arbitral Tribunal

An arbitral tribunal (or arbitration tribunal) is a panel of one or more adjudicators which is convened and sits to resolve a dispute by way of arbitration. The tribunal may consist of a sole arbitrator, or there may be two or more arbitrators, which might include either a chairman or an umpire. The parties to a dispute are usually free to agree the number and composition of the arbitral tribunal. In some legal systems, an arbitration clause which provides for two (or any other even number) of arbitrators is understood to imply that the appointed arbitrators will select an additional arbitrator as a chairman of the tribunal, to avoid deadlock arising. Different legal systems differ as to how many arbitrators should constitute the tribunal if there is no agreement.

Arbitral tribunals are usually constituted (appointed) in two types of proceedings:

• ad hoc arbitration proceedings are those in which the arbitrators are appointed by the parties without a supervising institution, relying instead on the procedural law and courts of the place of arbitration to resolve any differences over the appointment, replacement, or authority of any or all of the arbitrators; and
• institutional arbitration proceedings are those in which the arbitrators are appointed under the supervision of professional bodies providing arbitration services, such as the American Arbitration Association (which conducts international proceedings through its New York-based division, the ICDR), the LCIA in London or the ICC in Paris. Although these institutions (and many others) are headquartered in their respective cities, they are capable of supervising the appointment of arbitral tribunals in nearly any country, avoiding the need for the parties to involve local courts and procedures in the event of disagreement over the appointment, replacement, or authority of any or all of the arbitrators.

Permanent tribunals tend to have their own rules and procedures, and tend to be much more formal. They also tend to be more expensive, and, for procedural reasons, slower.