An Idea Becomes Reality
It all began with the idea of writing a casebook for law students and young practitioners on the law and practice of international commercial arbitration. The original purpose of such a book was to provide the reader with a full and realistic picture of the arbitral process. But it became clear at the very beginning of the writing stage that a pure textbook could not fulfill this aim. Visual aids, documentation and a vivid description would be needed to impart practicalities and psychologies of arbitration. It was at that time that the idea to produce a video film of the arbitration hearings described in the book was born.
Arbitration Interactive is the result of a team effort at the Center for Transnational Law (CENTRAL) (www.central-koeln.de). Its implementation took more than two years, involved more than 60 people and would not have been possible without everybody's enthusiasm, commitment and excellent support (literally night and day).
At CENTRAL daily work routine changed when the idea to produce the first video film on international commercial arbitration evolved: Terms like editing, authoring, encoding, divix, multiplexing, mpeg and the like became part of everyday life.
Then, in November 2001 we all enjoyed the unique experience of a real life taping of an arbitration hearing. The shooting took place at the film studios of the Department for Audiovisual Media at the University of Muenster, Germany (see pictures below).
More pictures... The Tribunal (from left to right: Hilmar Raeschke-Kessler, Martin Hunter, Pierre Karrer) is ordered to take seats and listen to the proposed schedule of the day; (certainly a rather odd instruction for a tribunal)  "My lips are so dry, they're stuck together!" Klaus Peter Berger and Stefan-Georg Hoffmann discuss the video's progress  Hilmar Raeschke-Kessler backing up his role as co-arbitrator Dr. van Lent at a last minute rehearsal  A man with headphones tells the camera woman about a giant fish he caught last weekend  Dagmar Winkelsträter acting excellently as Ms. Martina Berg, the Tribunal's secretary; (presumably she'll never be Dagmar again)  Stefan-Georg Hoffmann informs the tribunal of last night's football results  The First Presentation of the book at the final rounds of the 9th Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot 2001/2002 at the Juridicum of the University of Vienna |