Privatizing Justice

While the use of arbitration in the private sector has grown dramatically in recent decades, arbitration itself is not new. Yet the practice today looks very different than it did at its origins. How did arbitration shift from providing a low cost, less adversarial, and more efficient way of handling disputes between relative equals to a private, non-reviewable, and compulsory forum for resolving disputes between individuals and corporations that almost always favors the latter? Privatizing Justice examines the broader institutional, political, and legal dynamics that shaped this century-long transformation and explains why the system that emerged has shifted power to corporations, exacerbated inequality, and eroded democracy.