Originally from: UNCITRAL Model Law After Twenty-Five Years: Global Perspectives on International Commercial Arbitration

INTRODUCTION

On December 22, 1997, 1 the German legislature decided to fundamentally reform German arbitration law by adopting the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration (Model Law). 2 In this way, the German legislature harmonized arbitration law on both a national and international level, thus ensuring that all arbitration proceedings seated in Germany are conducted in accordance with uniform standards.

With the exception of cases in which contractual parties have other, prior agreements, this law allows for and requires an interpretation of national procedural regulations in light of an international context. The national procedural law’s scope of application differs from article 1 of the Model Law in that it is not limited to commercial matters and is thus more extensive. It applies to any dispute involving a pecuniary interest,such as matters of family law support payments, 3 as well as nonpecuniary interests in respect of which the parties are free to settle.4 This leads to international legal conceptions having a broader and greater impact on national law.