While international arbitration offers a myriad of well-known advantages for resolving cross-border commercial disputes, including confidentiality and procedural flexibility, many newer participants find the dearth of detailed procedural rules unnerving. Seasoned practitioners usually embrace that flexibility as an advantage, but it can lead to challenges, and privilege issues can be one such challenge.

This article examines the difficulties that privilege issues can present in international arbitration, and concludes that solutions oftentimes lie with an overlooked legal tool—common sense.