Foreign States Immunities Act 1985

Where a foreign State is a party to an agreement to submit a dispute to arbitration, then, subject to any inconsistent provision in the agreement, the foreign State is not immune in a proceeding for the exercise of the supervisory jurisdiction of a court in respect of the arbitration, including a proceeding:

by way of a case stated for the opinion of a court;

to determine a question as to the validity or operation of the agreement or as to the arbitration procedure; or

to set aside the award.

Where:

apart from the operation of subparagraph 11(2)(a)(ii), subsection 12(4) or subsection 16(2), a foreign State would not be immune in a proceeding concerning a transaction or event; and

the foreign State is a party to an agreement to submit to arbitration a dispute about the transaction or event;

Subsection (1) does not apply where the only parties to the agreement are any 2 or more of the following:

a foreign State;

the Commonwealth;

an organisation the members of which are only foreign States or the Commonwealth and one or more foreign States.