Moving to California during the Gold Rush, Bieral found himself in a frontier society defined by lawlessness, racial tension, and economic ambition. The chapter examines his possible involvement in violent incidents and his association with notorious figures in San Francisco’s Barbary Coast. Bieral’s return to Boston and legal name change reflected his desire for reinvention and racial reclassification amid rising nativism and the Fugitive Slave Act. His story illustrates the fluidity of identity and the strategic use of whiteness in navigating legal and social hierarchies. California’s chaotic environment provides an extreme example of a society run by bullies in antebellum America.

This chapter analyses the Ocean Acidification Alliance (OAA) against five elements of global experimentalist governance. The OAA, launched in 2016 by Pacific Coast governments, comprises over 145 members addressing ocean acidification. Evaluating the five elements reveals: (1) A shared problem exists – members agree on OA definition and causes; (2) Open-ended goals are present – six framework objectives like ‘reduce CO2 emissions’ with provisional, loosely worded targets; (3) Delegation occurs – members create Action Plans with discretion to experiment, although delegation is not solely to lower levels; (4) Feedback and peer review are limited – information sharing occurs through webinars and meetings but lacks systematic reporting on specific metrics; (5) Goal adjustment is possible – goals and metrics can evolve based on scientific findings and member experiences. A key limitation is that metrics lack specificity, undermining systematic reporting and peer-review cycles essential to experimentalist governance. No penalty default exists due to voluntary membership. While the OAA exhibits features of experimentalist governance, the absence of concrete metrics weakens the recursive learning process. Future metric development could enhance the implementation of experimentalist governance within this voluntary, multilevel climate coalition.

This chapter outlines the governance landscape of ocean acidification (OA), identifying thirty-one actors and twenty-seven instruments at the international, regional, local, and transnational levels. The map indicates that no single institution leads OA governance; rather, multiple institutions address different aspects through implicit mandates rather than explicit ones. Only the Ocean Acidification Alliance has a clear OA mission. Most institutions operate across various fields such as climate, biodiversity, and marine protection, resulting in functional overlaps without a clear hierarchy. Applying regime complex theory, the chapter contends that OA governance constitutes a regime complex – partially overlapping, likely non-hierarchical institutions governing the same issue area. Three factors affirm this classification: divergent interests (economic vs. environmental), high uncertainty (scientific complexity and multiple actors), and limited linkages between institutions. The regime complex is situated at the intersection of climate, marine, and atmospheric governance systems. This characterisation is vital, as it implies that global experimentalist governance could effectively utilise these existing institutional arrangements rather than supplanting them, laying the groundwork for selecting suitable governance approaches in subsequent chapters.

The afterword explains why Louis Bieral’s life matters. He had an almost unique set of experiences. He illustrates the importance of violence to the operation of nineteenth-century American society. He also suggests the difficulty of establishing the rule of law, replacing the veneration of physical might with the celebration of persuasion.

This chapter centers on Bieral’s role in the 1854 Anthony Burns fugitive slave case, where he organized armed guards to prevent Burns’s rescue. Bieral’s participation reveals his alignment with pro-slavery Democrats and his complex racial identity. The chapter interrogates his motivations – political loyalty, racial self-interest, and personal pride – while contrasting his actions with abolitionist efforts. Bieral’s subsequent assault on attorney Richard Henry Dana, Jr., exemplifies the violent enforcement of political power. The narrative situates Bieral within the broader context of antebellum racial politics, highlighting the paradox of a possibly mixed-race man defending slavery to assert his whiteness and authority.

This chapter posits that risk assessment necessary as a condition precedent to settlement requires evidentiary transparency as to all stakeholders, including the arbitral tribunal. Moreover, this chapter discusses and asserts that settlement and mediation techniques are futile absent a thorough understanding of the underlying evidence, and objective procedural methodologies governing admissibility, relevance, materiality, and weight of the evidence. Thus, the chapter analyzes features and possible amendments to the rules of the leading ICA institutional administrative bodies that would enhance the predictive value of determinations based on existing evidence. Consequently, the evidential framework of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce (SCC), the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC), the International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR), and the German Arbitration Institute (DIS) rules are analyzed.

Bieral’s relocation to New York and integration into Tammany Hall’s Empire Club mark his rise as a political enforcer. The chapter details his involvement in pedestrianism, prizefighting, and Democratic factionalism, including the violent 1859 Syracuse convention. Bieral’s alignment with pro-slavery “Hards” and his role in suppressing abolitionist dissent reflect the entwinement of sport, politics, and violence. His involvement in the Heenan–Sayers fight and other high-profile events solidified his status as a cultural figure. The narrative emphasizes the performative nature of masculinity and the strategic deployment of physicality in political contests.

This chapter proposes global experimentalist governance as an ideal framework for addressing ocean acidification (OA). Global experimentalist governance consists of five elements: identifying a shared problem, setting open-ended goals, delegating solutions to lower governance levels, establishing feedback and peer-review mechanisms, and adjusting goals based on learning. This approach aligns well with OA’s characteristics, which are both scientific and part of a regime complex. The framework accommodates OA’s complexity through recursive learning cycles, multilevel participation, and provisional goal setting that can adapt as scientific understanding advances. A central unit coordinates, but does not control, the process, using ‘penalty defaults’ to encourage reluctant actors to cooperate. Favourable background conditions for experimentalist governance exist for OA, such as strategic uncertainty due to problem complexity and polyarchic power distribution with no single dominant actor. The chapter concludes that this governance approach could leverage OA’s existing regime complex rather than replace it, making it a promising framework for tackling this emerging environmental challenge.

This chapter further explores the necessary structural and conceptual contours for the development of a normative framework of rules addressing both (i) taking and (ii) presentation of evidence. In doing so, emphasis is placed on the absence of a universally recognized framework purporting to constitute a uniform set of international rules of evidence. Moreover, the hybrid nature of ICA, straddling the space between a private adjudicative dispute resolution system and one that necessarily must operate within a framework of a national arbitral law (lex arbitri), as well as a treaty-based enforcement regime that hardly is immune from idiosyncratic public policies of signatory States, is identified as a source of indeterminacy that clouds the necessary risk assessment conducive to settlement. In this same vein, evidentiary rules themselves are identified as partaking in a duality that also leads to indeterminacy.

This chapter analyzes the Prague Rules’ claim to maximizing process efficiency by limiting party-autonomy and emphasizing arbitrator discretion. In this context, it is asserted that the re-shifting of focus from the parties to the arbitral tribunal does not and cannot lead to optimal efficiency. Hence, notwithstanding the Prague Rules’ settlement provision, these rules fail to create an environment providing for the (i) identification, (ii) quantification, and (iii) communication of risk that would drive the parties to a voluntary settlement of the dispute, foreclosing a zero-sum result. The delay, lack of efficiency, and indeterminacy plaguing ICA simply are not cured by the Prague Rules’ shift of emphasis. Comprehensive evidential analysis and objective standards remain necessary predicates to settlement, irrespective of any enhancement of arbitrator discretion and corresponding diminution of party-autonomy.

This chapter selects two case studies to examine the presence of global experimentalist governance in ocean acidification governance: the Ocean Acidification Alliance and the International Maritime Organization. The selection distinguishes between ‘suitable’ institutions (addressing one OA activity) and those with ‘significant potential’ (addressing multiple activities within one concern or across concerns). Using a comprehensive table that maps actors and instruments, the chapter analyses how institutions address OA’s three concerns: causes (CO2, NOx/SOx), stressors (e.g., climate change, pollution, and fishing), and adaptation (blue carbon, marine protected areas, and fisheries management). Most institutions show significant potential by addressing concerns in depth and/or breadth. The OA Alliance was selected as the only institution explicitly focused on OA, addressing CO2 emissions and coastal activities. The IMO was chosen for its role in shipping emissions (both CO2 and NOx/SOx) and broader pollution control mandate. These cases differ in legalisation levels and institutional structure, providing diverse perspectives on experimentalist governance challenges. Both have significant potential and focus on CO2, the primary OA driver, making them ideal candidates for testing the implementation of global experimentalist governance.