EXPERTS AND EXPERT EVIDENCE IN INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION

Abstract

The article analyzes important issues of the arbitration process in particular experts and expert evidence problems - both in common and civil law jurisdictions. It covers legal proceedings and arbitrations as well as the limits to the use of expert evidence. The overall objective of this paper is to provide the reader with an appreciation of expert evidence, some of the current debates on its use, and how to challenge it when it is used. The paper also contributes to the current debates on expert evidence. The key point here is that it is an opinion - what the expert thinks - which is of evidentiary value. Ordinarily, evidence is fact based, not opinion based. Such opinions, therefore, have to reach a very high standard in proceedings where they are used. If judgments and decisions are to use, and be based upon such opinions, they have to be sound, and be anchored in a real expertise.