Arbitration in the UAE is governed by the Federal Arbitration Law, Federal Law No. 6 /2018 which came into force in June 2018, and repealed Article 203 to 218 of Federal Law No. 11/1992 which had previously governed arbitration in the UAE. Unlike the former arbitration provisions in Federal Law No. 11/1992, the new UAE Arbitration Law is largely modelled on the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration, as adopted by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law of 1985 and amended in 2006.

Federal Law No. 6 /2018 has 61 provisions, many of which can be traced back in the UNCITRAL Model Law in an effort to modernise the current arbitration process in the UAE and align the arbitral framework with international standards. However, while this newly-enacted law is largely based on the UNCITRAL Model Law, Federal Law No. 6/2018 does include several areas of divergence.