Originally from World Arbitration Reporter (WAR) - 2nd Edition

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I.  INTRODUCTION: ARBITRATION IN JORDAN—HISTORY AND INFRASTRUCTURE

A. History and Current Legislation on Arbitration

1. Historical evolution of law relating to arbitration

Before enacting the Law of Arbitration No. 18/1953 Jordan used to apply the rules of arbitration in Palestine   and remained applying them even after full independence in 1946, until enacting the said Law which expressly abrogated them in article 22. On 2001, the legislator issued a new law which is still in effect until now without any amendments. The new law called “The Arbitration Act no. 31/ 2001” (the Act) which is mainly derived from the Egyptian law of arbitration no 27 of 1994 (the Egyptian Law) with some important differences between these two as will be seen later. On its part, Egyptian Law was derived, to a great extent, from UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration of 1985 (ML). It is worth maintaining that some main provisions of the Act are, to some extent, similar to its counterparts in the previous law no. 18 above.  This is due to the fact that both laws are dependent, generally, on the principle of the party autonomy with regard to arbitration. There is also another law in Jordan which applies to enforcement of foreign judgment and, also, to arbitral awards No. 8 of 1952 called the Law of Enforcement of Foreign Judgments (the Enforcement Law). 

There are other certain legislations providing for arbitration in certain fields. In the Civil Aviation Law No.41, for example, article 23 provides for obligatory arbitration between an investor in Jordan and the (the Jordan) Civil Aviation Organisation. Also, almost all bilateral conventions, to which Jordan is a party specially those related to investment, provide for arbitration to settle disputes between an investor from Jordan investing in the other country and that other country or any of its entities, and vice versa.  

Also, Jordan is a party to Washington Convention of 1965 (ICSID), New York Convention of 1958 (NY Convention) and Riyadh Convention of 1983 for judicial co-operation between Arab States.