Arbitration and Emotions: An Introduction

The chapter explores the often-overlooked role of emotions in international arbitration, situating arbitral decision-making within broader insights from psychology and the interdisciplinary field of “law and emotions.” While arbitral scholarship has increasingly acknowledged cognitive heuristics and biases as sources of error, emotions have traditionally been treated as deviations from rationality to be suppressed. Challenging this view, the chapter argues that emotions are not antithetical to reason but are integral to human cognition and decision-making. Drawing on empirical research and legal theory, it demonstrates that certain emotions (particularly the so-called background and epistemic emotions such as curiosity, doubt, confidence, and engagement) play a constructive role in guiding attention, motivating deliberation, and supporting rational judgment. The chapter further examines how emotions influence persuasion in adversarial settings, highlighting the dual cognitive routes through which arbitrators process information and the importance of emotional attunement and empathy in evaluating narratives, credibility, and legitimacy. Ultimately, the contribution calls for a more nuanced understanding of emotions in arbitration, recognizing them not merely as risks to neutrality, but as indispensable components of effective, legitimate, and human decision-making.