China: The 2021 Proposed Amendments to the Arbitration Law — A New Era of Arbitration?

Summary

This article examines the draft amendments to the Arbitration Law of the People’s Republic of China released for public comment by the Ministry of Justice in July 2021, the first comprehensive revision proposed since the Law was enacted in 1994. It explains how the draft would widen party and tribunal autonomy by relaxing the restrictions on the choice of arbitrators, allowing ad hoc arbitration in domestic cases and permitting foreign arbitral institutions to administer proceedings seated in China. It also discusses the provisions empowering tribunals to rule on their own jurisdiction and to order interim measures, together with new rules accommodating online arbitration. The article situates these reforms within China’s broader effort to modernise its arbitration framework and to align domestic practice with the standards of leading arbitration jurisdictions, and assesses what the changes would mean in practice for parties to China-related arbitrations.