An Empirical Survey of International Commercial Arbitration Cases in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, 1970-2014

This Article identifies and organizes the circumstances in which national courts play a role in international commercial arbitrations— border crossings. It then records and analyzes empirical data of these border crossings in cases filed in a key national court for international arbitration-related litigation: the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. Data were collected from the date of entry into force for the United States of the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (the “New York Convention”) on December 29, 1970 to September 15, 2014. Based on interpretation of these data, the Article suggests how to regulate the border crossings to best balance the policy goals of international commercial arbitration with reasonable allowances for national sovereignty and fidelity to the New York Convention.