The ICC Arbitration Rules and the UNCITRAL Model Law

Abstract

THE ADOPTION in 1985 by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (‘UNCITRAL’) of a model law on international commercial arbitration (the ‘Model Law’) was a seminal event in the modern history of international arbitration. It was also an event that was encouraged, and welcomed, by international arbitral institutions such as the International Chamber of Commerce (the ‘ICC’). Although the ICC took no formal part in the elaboration of the Model Law, it was closely associated with its development. Indeed, UNCITRAL's decision to commence work on the Model Law followed a consultative meeting in Paris in September 1978 with representatives of the ICC's Commission on International Arbitration as well as the Asian–African Legal Consultative Committee (the ‘AALCC’) and the International Council for Commercial Arbitration (‘ICCA’).1 The participants at that meeting, including the representatives of the ICC, were of the unanimous view2 ‘… that it would be in...