The Riyadh Convention 1983, and why we usually advise against it

Article 37, and what it actually requires

Article 37, headed «أحكام المحكمين» (judgments of arbitrators), provides that arbitral awards are recognised and enforced in any Contracting Party in the same manner stipulated in Part Five, subject to the legal rules of the party where enforcement is requested. It opens «مع عدم الإخلال بنص المادتين 28 و30» — without prejudice to Articles 28 and 30.

A note on that cross-reference, because it is corrupted in circulation. Some Arabic copies render it as Articles 23 and 30. It is 28 and 30. All three official sources we read agree.

The enforcing body may not examine the subject matter of the arbitration and may not refuse enforcement except in the listed cases — on its face an exhaustive list. Article 32 reinforces this: the enforcing body verifies that the Convention's conditions are met «دون التعرض لفحص الموضوع», without examining the merits, and does so of its own motion. Note that asymmetry against the New York Convention: no merits review, but own-motion verification rather than party-driven objection.

Then the documents. The party seeking enforcement must produce:

• a certified copy of the award (صورة معتمدة من الحكم);
• a certificate issued by the judicial authority stating that it has acquired executory force — «شهادة صادرة من الجهة القضائية تفيد حيازته للقوة التنفيذية»; and
• where there is a valid written submission to arbitration, a certified copy of that agreement.

The second item is the problem, and we set out the reasoning rather than asserting the conclusion, because the point deserves to be checked.

The certifying body is «الجهة القضائية», the judicial authority — not the tribunal. A tribunal cannot certify that its own award has executory force; only a court confers it. Nor can it be the enforcing court's certificate, since the document must be produced with the application to that court, which would be circular. And the two neighbouring articles name the originating authority expressly: Article 35, on settlements, requires a certificate from the judicial authority «التي أثبتته» — that recorded it; Article 36, on executory instruments, requires one from the notary who drew it up. Article 37 uses the same formula minus the qualifier. Read with its neighbours, the judicial authority in Article 37 is that of the state of origin.

Either way the creditor does not escape the finality question, because Article 37(b) independently makes it a refusal ground that the award «لم يصبح نهائياً» — has not become final. Finality in the state of origin is a substantive requirement as well as an evidential one.

Why this is the 1927 model, not the 1958 one

The architecture of Article 37 is the Geneva Convention of 1927, not the New York Convention of 1958. Geneva required the creditor to prove that the award had become final in the country of origin, and that requirement is what produced double exequatur in practice. The New York Convention deliberately abandoned it.

So the firm's working preference for the New York Convention is textually well founded, and the reason can be stated in one line: Riyadh puts back on the creditor exactly what Article IV took off.

The refusal grounds, in two layers

Article 37 itself gives five:

• (a) the law of the requested state does not permit the dispute to be resolved by arbitration — arbitrability;
• (b) the award was made under a void arbitration clause or agreement, or has not become final;
• (c) the arbitrators lacked jurisdiction under the agreement or under the law under which the award was made;
• (d) the parties were not properly summoned to attend;
• (e) the award conflicts with the provisions of Islamic Shariah, public order or morals of the requested state.

Then Article 30, the grounds for refusing recognition of judgments, reaches awards through Article 37's opening cross-reference. It adds a conflicting prior judgment, an earlier-filed pending action in the requested state, defects in service of a default judgment, and non-observance of the requested state's rules on representation of persons lacking capacity — and its first ground is wider than Article 37(e), because it names the Constitution alongside Shariah, public order and morals.

That drafting is inconsistent, and it is worth being precise about it: Article 37(e) omits the constitutional ground, but because Article 37 operates without prejudice to Article 30, the constitutional ground reaches arbitral awards anyway. It would be wrong to say Riyadh has no constitutional ground for awards.

Article 28 is also incorporated. It sets out when the courts of the rendering state are deemed competent — domicile, a local branch, place of performance, place of the tort, express submission, and so on. Applying that to an arbitral award is conceptually awkward, but it is textually incorporated and a resisting debtor will run it.

One further point that matters more than it looks. Article 37 makes enforcement “subject to the legal rules of the Contracting Party where enforcement is requested”, and the closing paragraph of Article 30 permits the enforcing body to «أن تراعى القواعد القانونية في بلدها» — to have regard to the legal rules of its own country. Taken with the Shariah, public order and morals ground, the result is that Riyadh's grounds are nominally closed but functionally open-textured. That is a less predictable discipline than Article V.

Who is actually bound

The Convention entered into force on 30 October 1985, thirty days after deposit by one third of League member states under Article 67. Sixteen states appear on the depositary record as having ratified. The UAE deposited on 11 May 1999, by Federal Decree No. 53 of 1999.

This is where most published summaries go wrong, so we set out the distinction plainly: signing in 1983 is not ratification, and four signatories are not on the ratification list.

Of those four, Qatar is the firmest: it is absent both from the League's list and from Qatar's own official legal portal, which carries its ratifying decrees for comparable instruments. For Kuwait and Lebanon we have the League record only and no national source, so we put it as “not recorded among the ratifying states” rather than “never ratified”. For Djibouti we can neither confirm nor exclude ratification from Djiboutian sources, and we say so.

That matters practically because of Article 72: the Convention replaces the three League conventions of 1952 only for the states that ratified it. So Kuwait, Qatar, Lebanon and Djibouti remain on the 1952 regime and their bilateral treaties.

On reservations: Article 70 bars any reservation that conflicts with the Convention's provisions or departs from its objectives, and we found no state that entered a substantive reservation recorded in any official source. Be careful of four look-alikes — Egypt's «مع التحفظ بشرط التصديق» means subject to ratification and is not an Article 70 reservation; «الإجراءات التحفظية» in Article 25(c) means protective measures; Article 39's right to decline to extradite nationals is a treaty right every party has; and Saudi Arabia did not reserve but procured an amendment, which is the subject of the next section.

The Article 69 split, and why it matters per-destination

This is the part of the Riyadh analysis that is almost never stated correctly, and it changes the advice depending on which Arab state the debtor is in.

Article 69 as originally drafted is not a more-favourable-treaty clause. Limb (a) provides that the Convention's provisions bind all Contracting Parties and that two or more may not agree contrary to them. Limb (b)'s conflict rule — apply whichever instrument is more conducive — is confined to the surrender of accused and convicted persons, that is, to extradition. For civil and commercial enforcement the original Article 69 points the other way: it prohibits derogation between parties.

It was amended once, on Saudi Arabia's proposal, by Resolution No. 258 of the Council of Arab Ministers of Justice of 26 November 1997, in force 13 April 2002. The amended article provides that the Convention does not prejudice special agreements between certain member states, and extends the more-favourable principle beyond extradition to judicial cooperation generally — which does reach enforcement.

But the amendment binds only the states that accepted it, and there are nine. Palestine, the United Arab Emirates, Tunisia, Oman, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Syria, and Egypt. Jordan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Mauritania and Somalia are not among them.

The consequence is destination-specific, and it is the practical pay-off of this page:

• UAE and Egypt — both accepted the amendment, so the amended, genuinely more-favourable Article 69 governs between them.
• UAE and Jordan — the UAE accepted it, Jordan did not. The original Article 69 applies between them, with its prohibition on inter se derogation and its extradition-only conflict rule. The more-favourable-instrument argument that works against an Egyptian debtor is not available on the same terms against a Jordanian one.

We flag the step in that reasoning rather than hiding it: that an amendment binds only the parties that accept it is ordinary treaty law, not something the Convention spells out, and we have found no decision applying it to Riyadh.

When Riyadh is nevertheless the right route

An article that said “always use the New York Convention” would be wrong, and the exceptions are specific.

Libya and Somalia are not New York Convention parties. Both are on the Riyadh depositary record. For a debtor in either, Riyadh may be the only treaty route there is, double exequatur and all.

Iraq acceded to the New York Convention only on 11 November 2021, and its accession excludes awards predating entry into force, alongside reciprocity and a limitation to contractual commercial disputes. For an older UAE award against an Iraqi debtor, Riyadh may again be the only route.

And Riyadh is not uniformly worse. It bars review of the merits expressly, in two separate articles. Its grounds omit some of what Article V contains. Where the UAE courts have already ratified the award — which a claimant will often have done for domestic reasons anyway — the Article 37 certificate is a formality rather than a barrier, and Riyadh can be faster in a state whose New York Convention practice is unreliable.

That is the honest shape of the advice: the Convention first, Riyadh where the Convention is unavailable or where the UAE court step has already happened for other reasons.

Riyadh against the GCC Convention

For a Gulf destination both instruments may be open, and the GCC Convention is markedly the lighter of the two.

Its Article 12 is structurally the twin of Riyadh Article 37 — arbitral awards enforced in the same manner as the Agreement provides, without prejudice to Articles 2 and 4. But Article 12 imposes none of Article 37's additional grounds: no arbitrability ground, no void-agreement ground, no “has not become final” ground, and no ground that the arbitrators lacked jurisdiction. It carries no separate document list, and so no certificate of executory force. The GCC Convention's own document provision, Article 9, asks for a certified copy and a certificate of res judicata — which is less than a certificate of enforceability.

One honest qualification. Article 12's words “in the same manner as provided for in this Agreement” might import Article 9's res judicata certificate into the arbitral route. Even if they do, that is still less than Riyadh demands. We read the GCC text in the official-body English translation, which states that the Arabic prevails, so we treat this comparison as sound in direction and worth confirming against the Arabic before it is relied on in a filing.

Against that, the GCC Convention's Article 2 refusal grounds reach Islamic Shariah, the Constitution and public order, and Article 2(6) adds incompatibility with international treaties in force in the requested state. The Gulf page sets out what that means for an interest-bearing award and for a government respondent.

What we produce in the UAE

If Riyadh is the chosen route, the UAE side of the file is larger than on any other route in this series, because the Article 37 certificate has to be obtained before the foreign application is made.

That means a ratification action under Article 55 of the Federal Arbitration Law — the دعوى تصديق, to the President of the competent Court of Appeal — and then the certificate of executory force in a form the destination will accept. It is the one route in this series where we would say: get the UAE court act first, deliberately, rather than avoid it.

That is the opposite of our advice on the New York Convention route, and the contrast is the point. Under the Convention, ratifying first is usually wrong: Article IV does not ask for it, Article III forbids more onerous conditions, and it hands the debtor an Article 53 forum it had otherwise lost under the thirty-day bar in Article 54(2). Under Riyadh Article 37 the same step is a precondition. Choosing the instrument therefore has to happen before the UAE strategy is settled, not after.

Then the ordinary pack: certified copy of the award, certified copy of the written arbitration agreement, consular legalisation through MOFAIC and the destination's mission in the UAE — the UAE not being a Hague Apostille party — and the UAE-law evidence on finality. The remainder is on the UAE-side pack.

What this page does not state, and why

• That Article 37 expressly requires the certificate from the courts of the state of origin. It does not say so. The conclusion rests on construction in pari materia with Articles 35 and 36, and we have found no decision on it. This is the single point on which a contrary local ruling would reverse the advice on this page.
• That Egypt is bound, or when. Egypt acceded by decree in 2014, but Article 68 binds on deposit plus thirty days and we have not found a deposit date. We do not assert one.
• That Kuwait, Lebanon or Djibouti “never ratified”. They are not recorded among the ratifying states, which is the League's record and not a national one. Qatar we can put more firmly, on two official sources including Qatar's own portal. Comoros we record as “no record of accession found”, which is not the same as a finding that it did not accede.
• That a creditor has a treaty right to elect between Riyadh and the New York Convention. Article VII(1) of the Convention is what secures a creditor's resort to a more favourable regime, and nothing in Riyadh does. But whether an Egyptian or Jordanian court treats Riyadh as mandatory regional lex specialis, or entertains a Convention application instead, is a question of that forum's own law. We found no authority, and it has to be confirmed with local counsel. If the forum compels Riyadh, the UAE ratification step must be planned before filing abroad, which changes the whole timetable.
• National ratifying instruments for six states — Saudi Arabia, Syria, Mauritania, Sudan, Somalia and Palestine — which we could not identify, though the fact and date of ratification are evidenced on the depositary side for all six. For Oman, Jordan and Libya we found leads we could not verify to an official source, and for Jordan the available leads contradict one another, so we use none.
• Whether a UAE–Egypt or UAE–Jordan bilateral judicial cooperation treaty exists and what it provides. That is potentially decisive, because the amended Article 69 expressly preserves special agreements between member states. It is the next thing we would check on an actual file, and it is the subject of the bilateral-treaty page still in preparation.
• Limitation periods in any destination.

Sources

• Riyadh Arab Agreement for Judicial Cooperation, concluded at Riyadh 6 April 1983, in force 30 October 1985 — Articles 25, 28, 30, 32, 34, 35, 36, 37, 66 to 72, read in the Arabic, which is the only authentic language: the Convention was drawn up in Arabic in a single original deposited with the General Secretariat of the League of Arab States. There is no authentic English text. Verified against three independent official sources that agree word for word: the Arab Centre for Legal and Judicial Research (المركز العربي للبحوث القانونية والقضائية), a technical organ of the Council of Arab Ministers of Justice, whose compilation also carries the depositary ratification list and the 1997 amendment; the text annexed to Bahrain's Legislative Decree No. 41 of 1999, published by the Legislation and Legal Opinion Commission; and the text published by the Legal Affairs Department of the League's General Secretariat. English renderings on this page are ours, from the Arabic.
• Amendment to Article 69 — Council of Arab Ministers of Justice Resolution No. 258, 13th ordinary session, 26 November 1997, on the proposal of Saudi Arabia; in force 13 April 2002; accepted by nine states.
• UAE ratification — Federal Decree No. 53 of 1999 of 15 April 1999; deposited 11 May 1999.
• Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, New York, 1958 — Articles III, IV, V and VII(1), and the UN depositary record of accessions and declarations. UAE accession 21 August 2006, no declaration. Libya and Somalia are not parties. Iraq acceded 11 November 2021, excluding awards predating entry into force.
• GCC Convention for the Execution of Judgments, Delegations and Judicial Notifications — Articles 2, 9 and 12, read in the official-body English translation published with Bahrain's Legislative Decree No. 9 of 1996, which states that the Arabic prevails.
• Federal Law 6 of 2018 on Arbitration, as amended by Federal Decree-Law 15 of 2023 — Articles 53, 54(2) and 55, which govern the ratification action and what the UAE-law evidence can say.

Checked 4 November 2026. We could not locate the Convention in the United Nations Treaty Series, which is a failure to find rather than evidence that it is unregistered; note also that UNTS No. 55378 is the 2013 Riyadh Agreement, a Gulf security instrument and a different treaty entirely. Destination procedure is confirmed with correspondent counsel before filing; we act on the UAE side.

UAE award, an Arab destination?

The instrument has to be chosen before the UAE strategy is settled, because Riyadh wants a UAE court act that the New York Convention does not. Send us the award and the destination and we will tell you which route is open, whether the amended Article 69 is available between the two states, and what the UAE side has to produce.

Instruct us   Back to the series