BACKGROUND

The arbitration between the United States and Great Britain arose from Britain’s alleged breach of neutrality during the American Civil War, when Confederate forces procured warships built in Britain. The most notorious of these, the CSS Alabama, escaped Liverpool in July 1862 and went on to devastate U.S. merchant shipping worldwide. After years of failed diplomatic efforts—including the rejected Johnson–Clarendon Convention—the dispute was finally submitted to arbitration under the Treaty of Washington (1871) before a five-member tribunal seated in Geneva.

In September 1872, the Tribunal awarded the United States $15.5 million, a decision widely celebrated as a landmark in peaceful dispute settlement and a turning point in international law. Yet much of the arbitration and its negotiations remained secret for decades, and its reputation as a model of modern arbitration masks a process that differed markedly from contemporary standards.

ABOUT THE SEMINAR

The Alabama Claims arbitration, which took place in Geneva in 1871/72, has achieved iconic status in international law because it is widely considered to mark the beginning of the modern era of State-to-State dispute settlement. However, a close study of the arbitration reveals that this model of international dispute settlement bore almost no resemblance to the way in which international arbitration is conducted today as shaped by a body of fundamental ethical guidance and rules. In fact, it seems to be inconsistent with almost every precept of how we now understand how international arbitration should be conducted in line with those ethical considerations.

The speaker, Christopher Thomas KC, has spent over five years conducting archival research in various national capitals in order to piece together the story of this extraordinary arbitration. He has reviewed confidential diaries and correspondence pertaining to the negotiation of the Treaty of Washington that sent the dispute to arbitration, one of the arbitrators’ daily diary of the arbitration, the confidential correspondence of the two sides’ Agents with their respective capitals during the course of the arbitration, as well as correspondence generated by the legal counsel who were involved in the case.

Looking back at a period when no formalised ethical framework guided professional conduct demonstrates why today’s standards seek to safeguard the fairness and legitimacy of arbitral proceedings.