Update: As this post was published, the Singapore Convention Bill was passed into law. In previous blog entries, we have outlined the provisions of the United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation (also known as the Singapore Convention on Mediation), reported on its signing ceremony and observed that more than 50 States…

Over the past decade, the concept of resolving international investment disputes through mediation has gained traction among States, practitioners and academics. This is seen in the significant number of recent investment treaties that refer to mediation either as a pre-condition to arbitration, or as a stand-alone mechanism for resolving disputes. Support for mediation is also…

On January 3rd, the International Mediation Institute (IMI) released the first of eight documents reporting on the Global Pound Conference (GPC) events held in North America between 2016-17. IMI promises to release the remaining six-city reports, including the GPC Toronto Report, plus the GPC North America Report during January. While it’s hard to understand why…

I have recently been approached to enrol myself in an investor-state mediation training programme and also to speak at one of the sessions. That triggers off my deeper thoughts on the topic of investor-state mediation and related issues. This blog is an attempt to share my thoughts so that fellow mediation practitioners may consider whether…

Is this yet another case in which New York is setting global trends? By the end of the year, the state courts in New York are due to have a system in place requiring that civil and commercial disputes be resolved through presumptive mediation. “Presumptive mediation” means an “automatic”, pre-trial, statewide program of court-sponsored ADR….

On 2 August 2019 the “3rd Asia Pacific Conference, Singapore Convention on Mediation: Strategies of China, Japan, Korea and Russia” was held in Seoul, Republic of Korea (Korea). The Conference centred on the Singapore Convention on Mediation [1] United Nations Convention on International Setlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation 2019 (UN, New York) (Singapore Convention), with…

A couple of weeks ago I came across a poem by the Native American writer Joy Harjo, entitled “Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings.” The title made me curious, as might be expected for a mediator. You can find the whole poem online on the Poetry Foundation website, or you can buy the book of poems…

In Part I, I introduced and responded to concerns relating to China’s legal and judicial system if China signs the Singapore Mediation Convention. This part will focus on other concerns relating to the interests of various bodies of China. 1. Concern over possible harm to the interest of Chinese companies In recent years, the number…

On 20 December 2018, the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York passed a resolution to adopt the UN Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation (“the Singapore Mediation Convention” or “the Convention”) passed by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). The UNGA also agreed that the…

The success of international arbitration, among others, is owed to the New York Convention, which provided tools for global enforcement of arbitral awards. To that end, international mediation has been underused often because of the lack of necessary international enforcement mechanisms of mediated settlement agreements. The Singapore Convention on Enforcement of Mediated Settlement Agreements (Singapore…