Who Picks the Arbitrator — You Or The Algorithm?

(This post was co-authored by Giuseppe De Palo and Annie Lespérance, Head of Americas at Jus Mundi.)

When artificial intelligence enters the process of arbitrator selection, the question it raises is often framed as technical. In reality, it is structural. 

At stake is not simply how arbitrators are identified or ranked, but how arbitral authority itself is constituted — and whether the mechanisms that give arbitration its legitimacy can withstand algorithmic influence.

To explore that question, JAMS and Jus Mundi convened a joint program that departed deliberately from the standard panel format. Rather than exchanging views in the abstract, the organizers structured the program as a live hearing, complete with a tribunal, assigned counsel and formal argument on both sides of the issue.