Global Developments in Trust Arbitration

Over the last few decades, arbitration has become increasingly popular in a wide variety of contexts and jurisdictions. However, up until recently, one field - trust law - has stood apart and resisted the pull toward arbitration. Over the last few years, this tradition has begun to change. Indeed, an increasing number of jurisdictions have begun to embrace the arbitration of internal trust disputes, meaning disputes involving trustees and beneficiaries and relating to the inner workings of the trust. Although trust arbitration has received support from numerous courts, legislatures and commentators, the procedure is still in its infancy, and numerous questions exist about the use, scope and validity of arbitration provisions found in trusts. This chapter describes the key issues in the area of trust arbitration as a matter of both national and international law and introduces the work of other contributors to a new volume of collected essays on trust arbitration. Both the chapter and the book in which it is found consider trust arbitration from both a trust law and arbitration law perspective, which is critical to a proper understanding of the issues at stake. The chapter and the book also discuss trust arbitration as a matter of domestic and international law, thereby recognizing the differences in national approaches to trust arbitration while also respecting the importance of offshore jurisdictions in trust law and practice. Trust arbitration is a new and exciting area of law, practice and scholarship, and one that will be growing rapidly in the coming years. This chapter provides an important introduction to the comparative, international and interdisciplinary issues that arise when settlors seek to require arbitration of trust-related disputes through inclusion of an arbitration provision in a trust