ARBITRATION WORLD Qatar—The Shifting Sands of Arbitration By Matthew Walker and Joseph Lee (Doha) The jurisprudence relating to arbitration has been marked by uncertain progress within the member states of the Gulf Co-operation Council (“GCC”), formed of six members: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar. In this article, we examine recent developments with the progress of arbitration in Qatar. THE CURRENT LAW The current law on arbitration is split across two pieces of legislation. Largely, one governs international arbitration, and the other covers domestic arbitration. The former is addressed largely by Emiri Decree Number 29 of 2003. This decree ratified into Qatar Law the signature by Qatar of the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (New York, 1958) (the “New York Convention”), and the decree is short and uncomplicated. The New York Convention applies, unedited, as part of the canon of Qatar Law. Both international and domestic arbitration are, however, also addressed within the Civil and Commercial Procedural Code ("CCPC"), Law 13 of 1990. The main chapter of the CCPC that addresses arbitration is Chapter 13, Articles 190–210. Other provisions of the CCPC have also been considered relevant in certain judgments of the Qatar courts, notably Article 69 and Articles 379–383, which relate respectively to judgments and foreign judgments. In recent decisions, it has been apparent that the Qatari courts have encountered difficulties with certain inconsistencies between these laws. In particular, it should be noted that in the Arabic language, which is the only version of the CCPC with force in law in Qatar, the 37