OECD Arbitration in Tax Treaty Law

1. S. 274Introduction

This paper compares the arbitration clause under the Multilateral Instrument (MLI) with the clauses under the OECD Model Tax Convention on Income and on Capital (2017), the United States Model Income Tax Convention (2016), the United Nations Model Double Tax Convention between Developed and Developing Countries (2011), and the Council Directive (EU) 2017/1852 of 10 October 2017 on Tax Dispute Resolution Mechanisms in the European Union. In addition, it addresses technical differences, the reasons for the differences, and their effects.

The differences found are classified under chapters each of which discusses a specified subject. Besides the differences addressed in this paper, differences also exist in the selection of arbitrators. A separate paper in this book addresses the selection of arbitrators under different international instruments, which is why the selection of arbitrators has been left outside the scope of this paper.

2. Scope of the Arbitration Clause

As the scopes of the different arbitration clauses are compared, it can be noted that the starting point for all of the clauses is to cover all mutual agreement procedure cases. However, certain restrictions ...