Originally from The Swedish Arbitration Act of 1999, Five Years On: A Critical Review of Strengths and Weaknesses

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ULF FRANKE: Welcome back to the symposium. I hope you had a pleasant evening yesterday and a good night’s sleep, so we can have an interesting discussion today.

We have now reached, if the other sessions permit me to say so, the core session of this symposium. Now we will compare the Swedish Arbitration Act and the Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration and really scrutinise the Swedish Arbitration Act. This is, as you know, what this symposium is all about.

The UNCITRAL arbitration law is indeed the standard by which any arbitration legislation should be measured. So the point of departure today is the critical review of the Swedish Arbitration Act, starting with the Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration.

We are indeed fortunate to have with us Mr UNCITRAL himself, Dr Jernej Sekolec, Secretary of UNCITRAL, meaning he is the head of the UNCITRAL Secretariat.

UNCITRAL is an extremely efficient UN organ. To my mind it is the most efficient one. It has produced a number of important and highly successful instruments in the aid of international trade. In particular — and of course here I may be a bit biased — UNCITRAL has produced a number of texts in support of international dispute settlement.

It is indeed an important list of instruments, starting with the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules in 1975, then the UNCITRAL Conciliation Rules in 1980, and then the 1985 the Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration. In 1996, UNCITRAL issued the notes on organising arbitration proceedings.