Croatia - Arbitration Law and Practice in Central and Eastern Europe
Alan Uzelac Ph.D. (Croatia) is Professor of Law at the Zagreb University. He was previously Secretary General at the Permanent Arbitration Court of the Croatian Chamber of Commerce in Zagreb.
Tomislav Nagy (Croatia) is an Attorney with Vukmir & Associates in Zagreb.
Originally from Arbitration Law and Practice in Central and Eastern Europe
1. GENERAL LEGAL FRAMEWORK
1.1 National law
a) Current status
What is the current status? When was it enacted? Have there already been amendments?
Until 2001, Croatian arbitration law was contained in the federal law of the former Yugoslav federation, which dealt with arbitration in two acts: the Code of Civil Procedure and the Conflict of Laws Act. After establishment of the independent Croatian state in 1991, both acts were adopted as national legislation1 and they remained in force throughout the nineties, more or less unchanged.
A major change in arbitration law took place in 2001, when the scattered provisions in various laws were replaced by a single act – the Law on Arbitration, which is based on the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration.2 This new statute was adopted by the national legislature (Sabor) on 28 September 2001. It came into force on 19 October 2001.3
In addition to new legislation on arbitration, new legislation on alternative dispute resolution methods4 was introduced by the Law on Conciliation of 2003.5