Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution
Abstract
In the immortal words of Grease, some things "go together, like rama-lama-lama, ka-dinga-da-dinga-dong." Though everyone has their own list of favorite pairings, some sure-fire winners are hot dogs and baseball, Mom and apple pie, Justice Scalia and original intent.
Other combinations are not so easy to anticipate, at least until some far-reaching visionary has taken that all-important first step, leading the rest of the world to say "yes, of course, we see it now." Again, individual preferences vary, but some possible unions include surfing and kite flying (now an Olympic sport), bacon and chocolate (now available at an internet source near you), and arbitration and constitutional law.
This last item is the topic of Professor Peter Rutledge's new book from Cambridge University Press, Arbitration and the Constitution, and the focus of this review essay, which will consider, among other things, whether these two subjects are as compatible as, say, hot dogs and baseball. The core of the analysis appears in Part II, which outlines and evaluates the material presented by Rutledge in his book. This section sets the book within the context of existing forms of constitutional and arbitral scholarship and considers whether Rutledge succeeds in his bold experiment of blending together two such seemingly diverse areas of law.
Most book reviewers appear to spend an inordinate amount of time faulting authors for not including various topics that the reviewers believe are important. Rather than criticizing Rutledge for a book that could have been, but was not in fact written, those types of aspirational comments are limited to Part III, entitled "A Reviewer's Wish List." That section covers what, in this reviewer's mind, should be covered in the second edition of the book, for there is no doubt that a second edition is warranted. Indeed, as this essay will show, the intersection between arbitration and constitutional law is an important topic deserving of serious scholarly attention.
Disciplines
Dispute Resolution and Arbitration | Law
Recommended Citation
S. I. Strong,
Constitutional Conundrums in Arbitration,
15
Cardozo J. Conflict Resol.
41
(2013).
Available at:
https://larc.cardozo.yu.edu/cjcr/vol15/iss1/4