NALOGE ARBITROV

Organizing the Arbitrator's Mind: Is a Century-Old German Method for Guiding the Decision-Making Process of Judges Apt for International Arbitration?

Jan K. Schäfer

The article introduces to a three-step method applied for centuries by German judges when analysing a case in order to determine the legal relevance of the parties' narratives and to identify the disputed factual issues, which require the taking of evidence, the so-called Relationstechnik. The method focuses the decision-maker's mind in a transparent fashion without risking a pre-judgement of factual issues as the judge adopts for the sake of the analysis the pertinent party's factual narrative as true. The method enables the decision-maker to bring the factual and legal issues in a logical order, which results in a decision-tree. The article then discusses and positively answers the question whether the method could be applied in arbitral decision-making.