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

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I. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

Since the 1970’s, promoted by the US-USSR Optional Clause Agreement, and subsequently through the increased use of Stockholm as a venue for international arbitrations involving Chinese parties, Sweden and the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce have become an attractive place of international commercial arbitrations. This development could not have taken place without a well functioning statutory and judicial framework. Although the Swedish Act on Arbitrators of 1929 was rather old already in the 1970’s, it provided a reliable statutory framework for domestic as well as international arbitration. This was largely due to the fact that concepts fundamental to international arbitration such as deference to the will of the parties, competence-competence, separability of the arbitration clause from the contract and court review of arbitral awards on narrowly defined procedural grounds had gained support in Swedish arbitration law and court practice already at an early stage.  

In 1985 the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration (the Model Law) was adopted by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law. The Model Law, which has been adopted by 59 individual jurisdictions  and has influenced arbitration reforms in numerous other countries, has proved to be a highly influential instrument in achieving greater uniformity in the field of international arbitration and for creating a reliable and universally understood statutory framework for international arbitration in jurisdictions of different legal traditions. Furthermore, valuable arbitral experience can be derived from the case law on the Model Law, which has been developed by courts in Model Law jurisdictions during the almost 20 years that the Model Law has been in place.