Comparing WTO Panelists and ICSID Arbitrators: The Creation of International Legal Fields

Who are people who make the decisions in trade and investment dispute settlement systems? In order to describe and analyze investment arbitrators and trade panelists, the whole populations of people nominated to ICSID’s tribunals and committees as well as to WTO Panels from 1995 to 2009 were studied, considering their specialization in law, and their career backgrounds as public servants, academics or private professionals. Applying Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of legal fields, the data suggested that both systems produce legitimacy but in quite different ways and, interestingly, that the one more similar to domestic legal systems takes that form due to political forces, not by an incremental process powered by people with legal backgrounds.