Arbitraje familiar internacional

Abstract

The law that in theory would regulate marital arbitration in Spain is the Arbitration Act (2003). As it is well-known, this Act is inspired by the UNCITRAL Model Law, which was originally conceived for commercial arbitration instead of marital arbitration. This distinctive aspect would mean that the application of the Act to marital matters is not an easy task, since solutions usually developed for commercial issues are not compatible to the family settings. In fact, the specification of the international character of the case, the precise application of the rule which regulates the validity of the international arbitration agreement, and the recognition and enforcement of the Arbitral awards are fields that sometimes need a reinterpretation of the applicable norm to give a coherent answer to the case. The aim of this essay is to find the incoherencies of the Arbitration Act relating to marital matters and to give some solutions in order to solve these interpretative problems. Therefore, and after appreciating these solutions, it might be easier to balance the advantages and disadvantages of marital arbitration against the jurisdictional answer to the issue.