Arbitrability refers to whether a dispute can be submitted for arbitration. Qatari legislation sometimes refers to disputes that can be “settled amicably” or “reconciled by the parties themselves” and other times refers to disputes that are arbitrable to describe disputes that can be removed from the competence of state courts and adjudicated by an arbitral tribunal.

The interaction between Qatari provisions on arbitration and the notion of arbitrability seems ambiguous. As the situation stands today, it might not be easy to determine which matters are excluded from arbitration. This is because Qatar Law No. 2/2017 on the Issuance of the Arbitration Law in Civil and Commercial Matters (Arbitration Law), which provides that “arbitration may not be used in disputes of a type that the parties would not be legally permitted to settle themselves”, has neither defined nor given any precision as to what constitutes a dispute “that the parties would not be legally permitted to settle themselves.” Rather, article 2 of Qatar Law No. 2/2017 refers to other applicable laws in order to determine which matters can be resolved through arbitration.