An arbitration is international if:

1. the parties to an arbitration agreement have, at the time of the conclusion of that agreement, their places of business in different States; or
2. one of the following places is situated outside the State in which the parties have their places of business:
   1. the place of arbitration if determined in, or pursuant to, the arbitration agreement;
   2. any place where a substantial part of the obligations of the commercial relationship is to be performed or the place with which the subject-matter of the dispute is most closely connected;
or
3. the parties have expressly agreed that the subject matter of the arbitration agreement relates to more than one country.

The most important consequence of setting the place of arbitration in a certain country is that the procedural law of that country will apply to the arbitration procedure and the courts of that country will have jurisdiction to render judicial assistance and provide judicial oversight of the procedure.

The parties may submit the substance of the dispute to the domestic law of a certain country and/or to the general principles of law, usages of trade and lex mercatoria. On the other hand, the arbitration procedure will be usually governed by the law of the seat of the arbitration.

According to article 9 of Law 19.971, there is no violation of an arbitration agreement if one party petitions a judicial authority, either before or during the arbitration proceedings, to adopt interim measures. Pursuant to article 17 of Law 19.971, the arbitral tribunal may, at the request of one of the parties, order any of the parties to adopt interim measures that the arbitral tribunal deems necessary. The arbitral tribunal may also require any of the parties to provide an appropriate security in relation to those measures.

The New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards of 1958 constitutes, after having been ratified by more than 140 states, is the most important international treaty governing the matter. The enforcement of foreign arbitral decisions is also regulated by the Inter-American Convention of Panama on International Commercial Arbitration, approved in 1975. Articles 35 and 36 of Law 19.971 also regulate the recognition and enforcement of arbitral decisions, "regardless of the country in which it was made."

According to the aforesaid Conventions as well as Law 19.971 the arbitral award is presumed to be valid and recognition and enforcement may be denied only for restricted reasons indicated in those legal instruments.