If the agreement is written into as a part of a main contract, one should be careful when determining the governing law of the agreement. First, the agreement may choose a proper law by a sole clause to govern itself. Secondly, when the sole clause is absent, the decision may refer to the other provisions that include a choice of proper law to govern the main contract. It is assumed that the same law governs both arbitration agreement and the contract. In case of a choice of proper law to govern the entire contract, it is illogical to separate the proper law of agreement from the provisions of the main contract, because the arbitration clause, as a part of that contract, is theoretically subjected to the provisions of its principal contract. We can also find out evidence to support this assumption from Union of India v. McDonnell Douglas Corp . In this case, the judge stated: "An arbitration clause in a commercial contract like the present one is an agreement inside an agreement… The parties may make an express choice of law to govern their commercial bargain and that choice may also be made of the law to govern the agreement to arbitrate." When neither choice is made, the governing law of agreement should be, according with the seat theory,　referred to the law of the seat of arbitration. The provisions of Swiss law contribute an apt suggestion similar to these three steps, by which three accesses can be searched out to approach the law governing agreement. The law provides:
　　“As regards its substance, an arbitration agreement shall be valid if it conforms either (i) to the law chosen by the parties or (ii) to the law governing the subject matter of the dispute, in particular the law governing the main contract or (iii) if it conforms to Swiss law.”
　　3.The law governing the existence and proceeding of the arbitration tribunal
　　The law governing the existence and proceeding of the arbitration tribunal is deemed to procedure law in some countries. For example, in the Chinese law system, the provisions to regulate arbitration were written into Civil Procedure Law of the P. R. China 1991　and the later statute, Arbitration Law of the P. R. China (1994), is cited in the procedure law category of the authoritative law collections.　Because of the length limitation, discussions of definition and scope of “arbitration law” are not going deeply in this paragraph.

第 [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] 页 共[7]页