Strong musings.

Here are my disjointed takeaways from Strong's article:

I found the Strong article rather useful in guiding the research we were asked to do for our team oral arguments. I agree that there is barely any instruction on research skills for international arbitration. I would even say that international research is generally not something commonly taught (or I missed out on it somewhere); finding sources for my international law journal work is a lot more difficult for me than finding cases etc. within the United States. I thought it interesting that Strong pointed out the sort of Catch-22 of experience in international arbitration: novices don't know where to look for information, but the places that could tell them where to look for it can't be found if they don't know where to look. While the lends to the secrecy (and mystique!) of this practice as a whole, I suspect it leads to much frustration for new lawyers trying to break into the field. Worse, it might mean that the less experienced will be less able to represent their client. While this is true in most situations, I feel that I was able to find good authority relatively quickly for my first brief, while finding minimal support for international cases seems much more tedious. Finally, I'd wondered what the hierarchy of controlling law was, and I'm glad that she laid it out. To keep in mind:

• International conventions and treaties;
• National laws;
• Arbitral rules;
• Law of the dispute (procedural orders and agreements between the parties);
• Arbitral awards;
• Case law; and
• Scholarly work (treatises, monographs and articles).