International J. Soc. Sci. & Education 2014 Vol.5 Issue 1, ISSN: 2223-4934 E and 2227-393X Print 88 The Representation of Women in Arbitration in Iranian Legal System By Mahdi Haddadi Assistant Professor of University of Tehran Abstract After Islamic revolution in Iran, women’s judgment competency has been always discussed by connoisseurs. Based on article 4 of Iranian Constitutional Law, all civil, criminal, financial, economic, cultural, military, and political and other laws and regulations should be in accordance with Islamic rules. On this article and concerning the Islamic rules and opinions of Islamic jurisprudents on judges’ conditions, Iranian lawmaker believes that women are not competent for judgment, while it has not ruled that arbitrators must be males neither in Civil Procedural Law (concerning internal arbitrations) nor in the Law of International Commercial Arbitration. Therefore women can be also selected or assigned by dispute parties or court as arbitrator. Keywords: judgment, arbitration, women, Iranian laws, Islamic rules 1. Introduction In both domestic law and international commerce law, referring to arbitration to resolve disputes from concluding commercial contracts are increasingly growing. Almost in all legal systems, dispute solution through arbitration is accepted alongside governmental judicial regime. One the main fundamental of a dispute solution is the arbitrator. An arbitrator is some selected to resolve a dispute between two or more people. Undoubtedly, the parties have the right to assign arbitrator(s), even so national laws and the rules of an arbitration center from which assigning an arbitrator is demanded limit parties freedom in different ways to choose an arbitrator. An arbitrator should be competent. In doing so, national legal systems determine the competencies of people to become arbitrators (Khazaei: 1). In the past, in most European countries, women could not be elected as arbitrators and even now in some countries where arbitration has a close relationship to governmental judiciary; women are not able to be selected as arbitrators. In Islamic countries, there are limitations for judgment by women since according to Islamic rules; women have no right to judge and issue an award. Since an arbitrator issues an award so a woman cannot be selected as an arbitrator (Baamir, 2010: 80). In Iran, women’s judgment has been accompanied with numerous tensions and disputes. Some believe that women cannot judge fairly and others believe that women’s sensitiveness is a weak pint in arbitration and judgment. According to most Shi'a jurisprudents, judgment by women is not supported. In legal ratifications, women are not competent for judgment and they are not able to issue an award while in recent years many graduates from law schools are women. Although in Iranian laws, women’s competency for judgment is negated and current laws do not permit to employ women judges, the question is that is in Iranian laws, the conditions of arbitrators as same as judges’? Is it possible to select women as arbitrator in both national and international arbitrations by parties? In the case no arbitrator is designated by a party, is it possible for Iranian court or arbitration center based in Iran to assign women as arbitrator(s)? Present paper attempts to study women’s arbitration competency in Iranian laws briefly and to answer above questions.