The question whether private international law has a useful role to play in process of arbitration is framed too broadly to produce a concise and useful answer. It is also complicated by the inveterate tension between the doctrinal view, on the one hand, that lex facit arbitrum,1 the law makes the arbitration, and the pragmatic view on the other, that arbitration is a private matter whose very purpose is to keep the process of dispute resolution as far away from the courts, legal procedure and legal doctrine, as possible. It is further complicated by a perception, held by many if confessed by fewer, that private international lawyers do not really understand arbitration, and are forever trying to force it into a mould created and devised by them for proceedings before courts and judgments given by courts.