Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-401_2cp3.pdf
Page Number: 19

Cite as:  596 U. S. ____ (2022) 

15 

Opinion of the Court 

ad hoc panel with the authority to resolve the parties’ dis-
pute.  That  authority  exists  because  Lithuania  and  the 
Fund consented to the arbitration, not because Russia and 
Lithuania clothed the panel with governmental authority. 
Cf. Granite Rock Co. v. Teamsters, 561 U. S. 287, 299 (2010) 
(“[T]he first principle that underscores all of our arbitration
decisions” is that “[a]rbitration is strictly ‘a matter of con-
sent’ ”); AT&T Technologies, Inc. v. Communications Work-
ers,  475  U. S.  643,  648–649  (1986)  (“[A]rbitrators  derive
their authority to resolve disputes only because the parties
have agreed in advance to submit such grievances to arbi-
tration”).  So inclusion in the treaty does not, as the Fund
suggests,  automatically  render  ad hoc  arbitration  govern-
mental.  Instead, it reflects the countries’ choice to offer in-
vestors  the  potentially  appealing  option  of  bringing  their
disputes  to  a  private  arbitration  panel  that  operates  like 
commercial arbitration panels do.  In a treaty designed to
attract foreign investors by offering “favourable conditions 
for  investments,”  App.  to  Pet.  for  Cert.  in  No.  21–518,  at 
56a, that choice makes sense. 

None  of  this  forecloses  the  possibility  that  sovereigns 
might  imbue  an  ad hoc  arbitration  panel  with  official  au-
thority.  Governmental and intergovernmental bodies may 
take many forms, and we do not attempt to prescribe how 
they  should  be  structured.    The  point  is  only  that  a  body
does not possess governmental authority just because na-
tions  agree  in  a  treaty  to  submit  to  arbitration  before  it.
The relevant question is whether the nations intended that 
the  ad hoc  panel  exercise  governmental  authority.    And 
here, all indications are that they did not. 

The Fund tries to bolster its case by analogizing to past
adjudicatory bodies: (1) the body at issue in the dispute over 
the sinking of the Canadian ship I’m Alone, which derived 
from a treaty between the United States and Great Britain;
and (2) the United States-Germany Mixed Claims Commis-
sion.  There appears to be broad consensus that these bodies