Choosing Dubai: A Comparative Study of Arbitration under the UAE Federal Code of Civil Procedure and the Arbitration Law of the DIFC

摘要

This article is concerned with two things; one is a process, and the other is a place. The process is international commercial arbitration. The place is Dubai. Studying either in isolation will reveal that both the process and the place are, in their own right, important elements of the world economy. When approached together, the potential of the process in the place becomes apparent. Having enjoyed an exponential increase in corporate uptake since the Libyan oil nationalisation arbitrations of the 1970s,1 arbitration is now the preferred means of dispute resolution for international business. In the late 1990s, Dubai emerged as the preferred site for non-Arabs negotiating oil and gas agreements concerning the Gulf States. Benign tax laws and impressive capital works projects ensured a percentage of parties remained after their business was complete, establishing offices and local subsidiaries. The stability and ostensible neutrality of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) - the federation of seven of which Dubai is a member - made Dubai ideal as a regional command centre for big companies. What emerged as a nodal point for the energy trade in the late eighties is now a head office for a wide range of multinational businesses, many of which have no direct interest in the resource sector.