중국 중재법에 관한 연구

A Study on the Chinese Arbitration Act

The legislative body of The People's Republic of China, the National People's Congress, enacted the first arbitration act in China's history on August 31st, 1994, which took effect on September 1, 1995. The problems revealed through a comparison of China's Arbitration Act with the UNCITRAL model arbitration law were studied as well as the enacting process, background, status and system, important contents, problems of Chaina's Arbitration Act, and the differences between the old arbitration regulations and the new arbitration act. These are all discussed in this paper. The Arbitration Act is the basic act ruling over china's arbitration system: it unified the previously confusing laws and regulations relevant to the arbitration system, and the act brings out fundamental changes in China's domestic arbitration to the level of international arbitration standards. It is possible to view this act as a cornerstone in China's arbitration system. But, as discussed in this paper, there are still a lot of problems with the new act and only a few of the merits which the UNCITRAL model arbitration law has. First, under China's Arbitration Act, parties enjoy autonomy to some degree, but the range of party autonomy, compared to that of the UNCITRAL model arbitration law, is too narrow. Second, because China's Arbitration Act didn't explicitly provide issues which can give rise to debate, a degree of confusion in its interpretation still remains. Third, China's Arbitration Act's treatment of some important principles was careless. Fourth, in some sections, China's Arbitration Act is less reasonable than the UNCITRAL model arbitration law. These problems must be resolved in order to develop China's arbitration system. The best way of resolving these problems for China is to adopt the UNCITRAL model arbitration law. But it is difficult to expect that China will accept this approach, because of the present arbitration circumstances in China. Although it is difficult to accept all the contents of the UNCITRAL model arbitration law, China's legislators and practitioners must consider the problems mentioned in this paper.