The large majority of UAE BITs however provide for the classical cooling-off period in which the parties shall first seek to settle amicably their dispute before being entitled to choose between the options more or less varied provided by the BITs. The cooling-off period is generally 6 months from the date of the written notification seeking amicable settlement; some other BITs adopted a shorter period of 3 months; the isolated UAE-Sudan BIT doesn't specify any period though imposing an amicable settlement upfront while the UAE-Syria BIT doesn't impose any amicable settlement procedure.

In fact, a number of recent cases by arbitral tribunals show the general tend to treat “waiting periods” as directory and procedural rather than mandatory and jurisdictional*^[1] or to limit their effect where it is clear that negotiations were not likely to lead to settlement*^[2] considering that the only consequence of seeing waiting periods as a bar to the tribunal's competence would be to compel the claimant to start the arbitration proceedings which would be a highly uneconomical solution.