§ 9-9-21.Applicability

This section marks the outer boundary of the Code. It applies to international commercial arbitration, and subsection (a) makes clear that any treaty in force between the United States and another country takes precedence where one applies.

Subsection (c) spells out three ways an arbitration qualifies as international: the parties have their places of business in different countries when they sign the arbitration agreement; the place of arbitration, the place of performance, or the place most connected to the dispute sits outside the country where the parties share a business location; or the parties themselves have agreed that the matter touches more than one country. Subsection (d) fills in the edge cases — when a party has several offices, the one closest to the arbitration agreement counts, and when a party has no fixed place of business at all, its habitual residence stands in.

Subsection (b) narrows the Code’s reach in a different way. Most provisions apply only when the arbitration is seated in Georgia. A short list of sections — the court’s power to refer a case to arbitration, court-ordered interim measures, the rules on recognizing and enforcing a tribunal’s interim measures, and the rules on recognizing and enforcing an arbitration award itself — apply regardless of where the arbitration sits, because those provisions describe what a Georgia court can do, not what happens inside the arbitration itself.

Subsection (e) closes with a reminder that this Code does not disturb other Georgia laws that keep certain disputes out of arbitration altogether or route them through a different process.