The New Swiss Law on International Arbitration

Abstract

ON 18 December 1987, the Parliament of Switzerland finally adopted, by a nearly unanimous vote1, a comprehensive ‘Federal Act on Private International Law.’ This statute, whose preparation by a group of experts had started in 1973, contained 200 articles and deals with practically all domains of private international law including (apart from the conflict of laws in the fields of family relations, corporations, contracts, torts, etc.) jurisdiction of Swiss courts, recognition and enforcement of foreign decisions, bankruptcy and arbitration. A Chapter 12 of the Act (Articles 176 to 194) deals, for the first time in Swiss legal history, with ‘international arbitration,’ which is now clearly and officially distinguished from domestic arbitration, in contradistinction to the present regime of the so-called ‘Concordat’ (Intercantonal Convention on Arbitration, 1969, hereinafter ‘CIA’ as per its French acronym). Having regard to the important rôle traditionally played by Switzerland as a host country to...