The British Romantic period is often characterized as a time of declining interest in religion but religious life permeates the literature through influences from many different religious groups. This essay traces the history of recent scholarship, particularly the waning of the secularization thesis and rise of more than two decades of active study of British Romanticism and religion.

Romanticism and Protestant Dissent are deeply intertwined; this essay reflects on the long history of their cross-connections. In recent decades there has been an upsurge of interest in the inspirational power of Dissenting allegiances to Romantic-era writers, and the rich literary culture of specific religious groups. Individual writers nurtured and encouraged by Dissent are being restored to prominence, and we are beginning to recover the importance of nonconformist discourse in shaping the literature and culture of the long eighteenth-century – such as the influence of Methodist life-writing and different forms of devotional practice. The essay outlines the diversity of nonconformist practice in the period, and argues for the diffuse and far-reaching impact of Protestant Dissent, through the familial and friendship circles of nonconformity, its educational institutions and publishing networks, and its influence on social and political debate. More broadly, it seeks to trace Dissenting affiliations and inspirations in the work of Romantic-era writers, exploring the case study of Anna Letitia Barbauld in detail.

The issue of applicable law is something that all investment tribunals must inevitably address. Yet it is one of the most misunderstood and misaddressed (or ignored) topics in the field. The basics of applicable law are relatively straightforward – the law applicable to the dispute is that which arbitrators use to come to a decision about whether or not there has been a breach of that law. Thus, whether they are adjudicating a contractual or treaty-based dispute, investment arbitrators must first identify the law applicable to the dispute and then use it to assess the liability of the defending party or parties. These statements are deceptively simple, since the selection of applicable law, its application, and its intersection with other laws, whether international or domestic, continue to be contentious and difficult questions.

Judaism in Britain during the Romantic era shaped tradition to suit the requirements of modernity and the challenges of “Englishing” an ancient religion. Jewish novelists, poets, and theologians promoted emancipation and mutual understanding with a Christian-majority society. David Levi, Hyman Hurwitz, and Grace Aguilar made especially important contributions.

It is a truth universally acknowledged – or at least it should be1 – that the importance of arbitration between States extends beyond the subject matter of the arbitrations themselves and has wider implications for the peace of the world. The idea that wars can be avoided if States have access to peaceful means of settling the disputes which might lead to war has played an important part in international relations for at least 150 years. Yet it is an idea which has waxed and waned in popularity. Its apogee was in the last decades of the nineteenth century and the first years of the twentieth. At that time there were many – by no means all of them international lawyers – who saw international arbitration as one of the principal instruments for preserving the peace.2 That idealism waned after the World War I.

As international arbitration has become increasingly popular over the years as a mechanism for resolving substantial cross-border disputes, stakeholders in the process – parties, counsel, and arbitrators themselves – have devoted significant and increasing attention to how principles of professional ethics should apply in the context of these proceedings.

Stressing that fully declared atheism was illegal throughout the Romantic period and beyond, the chapter gives a brief survey of some philosophical Enlightenment ‘isms’ which could sometimes be seen as connected to it, such as materialism, pantheism, necessitarianism, idealism, scepticism, and deism. It then moves from such abstractions into the world of active, sometimes dangerous debates about atheism itself, focusing on specific clashes between such figures as Joseph Priestley, Edward Gibbon, Thomas Paine, Richard Carlile, C. F. Volney, Erasmus Darwin, and their critics. The final section looks more closely at ways in which the atheism debate impinged on some of the period’s canonical poets, particularly the anxiously Christian Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the firmly atheist Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Dealing in Virtue, which Yves Dezalay and I published in 1996,1 was an effort to understand the origins of international commercial arbitration, its rise to become the default dispute resolution process for transnational disputes, how the arbitrators gained their positions and earned the legitimacy to be selected in high-stakes disputes, and how the rise of international commercial arbitration affected dispute resolution within national States. We interviewed some 400 members of the international commercial arbitration community. One of the most noted findings was that there was a tension between what we termed the “grand old men” of international commercial arbitration and a group of arbitration technocrats who both challenged them and preserved and defended their world. The grand old men were senior arbitrators who had made their careers in academia or practice or in the judiciary, arbitrated part-time (at least until the boom in arbitration in the 1980s), and in Weberian terms told to us in an interview of a technocrat, relied on their charisma for legitimacy.

Not simply the persistence of Greek and Roman comedy and tragedy, drama of the modern era had its rebirth in the liturgical performances within the church. Once the miracle and morality plays were moved out of the church, literally pro-fane, their secularized forms were soon suspected of degeneration, and the antitheatrical prejudice was promulgated. To control the possibly disruptive effects of the drama, censorship was introduced to spare leaders of Church or state from being maligned on stage. The Church of England may have been protected but Gothic melodrama found its villains and victims among the monks and nuns. Methodists, Quakers, Jews, dissenters, and nonconformists were targets for theatrical ridicule or abuse. Circumventing the proscriptions of the Licensing Act (1737), Shakespeare’s history plays provided a model for representing religious conflict on stage.

While Roman Catholicism has not traditionally figured prominently in Romantic studies, this essay traces the emerging sense of its cultural, historical, and political importance in the period. With William Wordsworth’s “The world is too much with us” as a case study, it outlines the political struggle over Catholic Emancipation, transnational contact with Ireland and France, anti-Catholic and philo-Catholic strands of British Romanticism, and contested religious historiographies.

It is often affirmed that international arbitration does not have a forum. This statement can be seen as one of the manifestations of the doctrine that considers arbitration as a purely international phenomenon, detached from national laws. I have criticised this doctrine in many writings and will not repeat my arguments here.1 What this chapter deals with is one specific aspect, namely the significance for international arbitration of the arbitration law of the country in which the arbitral tribunal has its formal seat, the lex arbitri. The analysis will show that the statement according to which arbitration has no forum cannot de understood to mean that the lex arbitri has no significance for arbitration.

The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) is an international organisation with 122 Contracting Parties, established to facilitate arbitration and other forms of dispute resolution. The PCA is a creation of the first Hague Peace Conference of 1899, and at the same time, a modern centre for the resolution of disputes involving States. It is a pre-cursor to creation of permanently constituted international courts and historically important in the development of international dispute resolution, yet is also more active in its own right today than at any point in its history.

The issue of corruption is exemplary for the role of public policy in arbitration. Corruption is a “bilateral” criminal act involving the briber and the taker of the bribe, with varying nuances of solicitation on both sides.1 Both sides have an interest in keeping corrupt activities secret. Yet, regardless of the intentions of the parties, there is a universal consensus that corruption cannot be tolerated in international business relations. When international business transactions tainted by corruption are submitted to international arbitration, the notion of party autonomy finds its limits in the transnational public policy against bribery and corruption. No award can be allowed to take effect if it is seen to condone corruption. International arbitration derives its legitimacy from applying the law, including public policy rules prohibiting corruption.