The 2010 Amendments to the International Arbitration Act: A New Dawn for Australia?

Asian International Arbitration Journal, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 29-53, 2011

Sydney Law School Research Paper No. 10/88

20 Pages Posted: 14 Sep 2010 Last revised: 20 Feb 2012

See all articles by Richard Garnett

Richard Garnett

University of Melbourne - Law School

Luke R. Nottage

The University of Sydney - Faculty of Law; The University of Sydney - Australian Network for Japanese Law; University of Wollongong

Date Written: September 14, 2010

Abstract

On 6 July 2010 Royal Assent was given to amendments passed by the Australian Federal Parliament relating to the International Arbitration Act 1974 (Cth) (IAA). These were the first substantial changes to the IAA for over 20 years and consequently warrant close scrutiny. Along with some other innovations, they follow most of the 2006 revisions to the 1985 UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration (Model Law), which has been particularly popular for Australasian jurisdictions updating their arbitration legislation. The amended IAA also provides the agreed core for Australian states and territories updating their Commercial Arbitration Acts (CAAs), although they adopt some variants given that their focus is on domestic arbitrations. This paper considers the amended IAA’s aims, writing requirements for arbitration agreements, enforcement of foreign awards, exclusion of the Model Law, interim measures, confidentiality, other substantive matters, and the temporal application of the 2010 amendments. It concludes that their scope is somewhat limited and unadventurous, but should significantly enhance the legal regime for international arbitration in Australia.

Keywords: international commercial arbitration, comparative law, Commonwealth law

JEL Classification: K10, K30, K33

Suggested Citation

Garnett, Richard and Nottage, Luke R., The 2010 Amendments to the International Arbitration Act: A New Dawn for Australia? (September 14, 2010). Asian International Arbitration Journal, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 29-53, 2011, Sydney Law School Research Paper No. 10/88, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1676604

Richard Garnett

University of Melbourne - Law School ( email )

University Square
185 Pelham Street, Carlton
Victoria, Victoria 3010
Australia

Luke R. Nottage (Contact Author)

The University of Sydney - Faculty of Law ( email )

New Law Building, F10
The University of Sydney
Sydney, NSW 2006
Australia

The University of Sydney - Australian Network for Japanese Law

Room 640, Building F10, Eastern Avenue
Sydney, NSW 2006
Australia

University of Wollongong ( email )

Northfields Avenue
Wollongong, New South Wales 2522
Australia

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
848
Abstract Views
4,767
Rank
52,897
PlumX Metrics