ARBITER OF THE ROMAN ARBITRATION PROCEDURE
ARBITER OF THE ROMAN ARBITRATION PROCEDURE

Summary/Abstract: Unclear distinctions between arbiter and iudex and thereby the difficulties and inconsistencies of understanding accurately the legal nature of arbiter in Roman law were primarily conditioned by the vague differentiation between arbitration and court procedure per formulas. The legal sources indicate that the precise meaning of an arbiter could be reached only from case to case analysis because it seems that this term and institute signified only a basic concept or an idea, or even a common denominator of a wide spectrum of decision makers that dealt with disputes differently than the iudex in court procedure. In different localities, disputes, among different disputants and on the grounds of different arbitration arrangement an arbiter receive substantially diverse meanings, roles and functions. Moreover, at least sometimes even the Romans themselves might use the terms iudex and arbiter indiscriminately. The problem did not go unnoticed by the scholars who study Roman law and was to some extent elaborated and clarified which provides better understanding of this specific procedural phenomena, but still requires the ongoing work and analyses of the legal sources. Although the Romans used the term arbiter to denote more a universal concept than a complex role and function of an individual decision maker in an actual case, the term and the specific language referring to him, as well as the differentiation between more types of arbitri, survived in late antiquity and were transferred to the Middle Ages and the procedural treaties of the time.

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