Originially from: World Arbitration and Mediation Review (WAMR)

The UK Arbitration Act 1996
The UK Arbitration Act 1996 is a remarkable piece of legislation. It is
a highly accessible statutory framework both from a linguistic and
organizational standpoint. On this score, it represents a substantial
improvement over prior English arbitration statutes, including the 1979
Act. The new legislation is comprehensive, thorough, cogent and coherent.
In its presentation and content, it easily rivals other legislative enactments
on arbitration—both longstanding and recent ones. It is built upon a
wealth of knowledge and expertise of arbitration law and practice, and
embodies a very contemporary and integrated concept of arbitration.
The content of the 1996 Act intermediates effectively between legal
regulatory principles and the practical realities of the arbitral process. The
statutory provisions read as a hybrid of standard legislative enactments
and institutional rules on arbitration. The fundamental precepts of the
"world law" on arbitration (party autonomy, the validity of arbitration
agreements, judicial assistance and cooperation, limited scrutiny of
awards, the requirement of basic procedural fairness, and the need for
finality and arbitral autonomy) are everywhere present in the statutory
provisions. These principles are not new to English arbitration law, but the
clarity of the codification and the cohesion of expression in the 1996 Act
give them new vitality and a stronger presence.
Depending upon how the question of arbitral autonomy is viewed, the
1996 Act, notwithstanding its substantial quality, does not achieve
absolute perfection. For example, it retains the right of judicial appeal of
the merits of arbitral awards and a restricted right of appeal on questions
of law during the proceeding. For good or ill, England remains one of the
few national jurisdictions that allows judicial supervision of arbitration on
the merits. Relatedly, the statute is less limpid about the place and
standing of international commercial arbitration within its regulatory
scheme. It still employs a nationality-based definition of international or
non-domestic arbitration and allows "exclusion agreements" as long as the
New York Arbitration Convention or other treaties do not govern
enforcement. The treatment of international arbitration is less unified and
suffers from the complication of internal and external cross-references.
These attributes contribute confusion rather than clarity to the regulation
of the subject area. Given the significance of London as an international
center for maritime and other forms of commercial arbitration, a more
transparent set of regulatory provisions would have been useful.