Document disclosure has long served as a paradigm for the clash of legal cultures in international arbitration. This is currently changing with the emergence of uniform transnational standards, based on compromise solutions that are acceptable to lawyers from both civil and common law backgrounds. However, the question of legal privilege is still excluded from this development. Arbitrators either determine the applicable law according to choice-of-law rules or apply several domestic laws cumulatively. This article argues that neither option leads to a satisfactory solution. Instead, autonomous standards have to be developed for privilege in step with the discovery procedure.
Journal of International Arbitration