The arbitration committees generally address misconduct by administrators and editors with access to advanced tools, and a range of "real-world" issues related to harmful conduct that can arise in the context of Wikimedia projects.

The English Wikipedia ArbCom was created by Jimmy Wales on December 4, 2003, as an extension of the decision-making power he formerly held as CEO of site-owner Bomis.

[7] The arbitration committee process has been examined by academics researching dispute resolution, and has been reported in public media in connection with case decisions and Wikipedia-related controversies.

[10] In October 2003, as part of an etiquette discussion on Wikipedia, Alex T. Roshuk, then legal adviser to the Wikimedia Foundation, drafted a 1,300-word outline of mediation and arbitration.

[5] In 2007, an arbitrator using the username Essjay resigned from the committee after it was found he had made false claims about his academic qualifications and professional experiences in an interview with The New Yorker.

[17][18][19] Also in 2007, the committee banned Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Carl Hewitt from editing the online encyclopedia for "disruptive" behavior of manipulating articles to align with his own research.

[8] In 2009, the committee was brought to media attention as a result of its decision to ban "all IP addresses owned or operated by the Church of Scientology and its associates, broadly interpreted", as part of the fourth Scientology-related case.

[31] On March 13, 2023, the Arbitration Committee began an investigation into the coverage of the history of Jews in Poland in response to an essay published by Jan Grabowski and Shira Klein.