Justice pursued in front of arbitral tribunals, especially justice concerning international disputes, is characterized by few formalities, an absolute guarantee of an adversarial procedure and a great adherence to the need for a solution in a particular case. This explains the fact that arbitral awards are frequently based on the customs of international trade and their general doctrine, among others, good faith, public policy, gute Sitten etc. The “traditional” general clauses or “standards” of evaluation recently have been joined by the standard of “reasonableness”, a concept which is well known in common law but traditionally absent in the legislation of the civil law legal orders. Due to the fact that frequent use of “reasonableness” does not correspond to a sufficient theoretical study, this work underlines the differences between the application of the standard of reasonableness in legal orders of common and civil law, especially by establishing correct criteria of application in arbitration proceedings.
Prof. Salvatore Patti has taught at the University of Sassari, Italy (1978-1986), the University of Trieste, Italy (1986-1995) as well as the Universities of Zurich, Switzerland and Freiburg, Germany. Since 1995 he has been a full Professor of Private Law at the University 'La Sapienza' in Rome, Italy. From 2005 to 2007 he taught a course in Civil Law focused on contracts for work and labor at the University “Bocconi” in Milan, Italy.
He has conducted periods of research in Munich, London and Stanford with scholarships provided by the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung, the DAAD, the British Academy and the American Fulbright Commission.
Besides his activities in his law firm with offices in Rome, Milan and Munich, he is editor or co-editor of various legal journals.
