"United Nations Convention on International Reconciliation Arising from Mediation"
"United Nations Convention on International Reconciliation Arising from Mediation" (also known as the Singapore Mediation Convention) was opened for signing in Singapore recently. Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and UN Secretary-General's Assistant to Legal Affairs Stephen MATHIAS attended the signing ceremony of the convention and delivered a speech. UN Secretary-General Guterres delivered a speech through video. Li Chenggang, Assistant Minister of Commerce of China, signed the Convention on behalf of the Chinese government. Currently, there are 46 signatories to the Convention.
The Singapore Convention on Mediation was adopted at the 73rd United Nations General Assembly on December 20, 2018 and is applicable to international settlement agreements arising from mediation. The Singapore Convention on Mediation establishes a unified legal framework for the right to invoke settlement agreements and the implementation of settlement agreements, and is an instrument that facilitates international trade and promotes the use of mediation as an effective alternative to resolving trade disputes.
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Purpose
The United Nations Convention on International Settlement Arising from Mediation was adopted in December 2018, also known as the Singapore Convention on Mediation (the Convention), which applies to international Settlement Arising from Mediation (the “Conciliation”). The Convention establishes a unified legal framework for the right to invoke settlement agreements and for the implementation of settlement agreements.
The Convention is an instrument that facilitates international trade and promotes the use of mediation as an effective alternative to resolving trade disputes. As a binding international instrument, the Convention is expected to bring certainty and stability to the international mediation framework, thereby contributing to the achievement of the SDG , mainly SDG 16.
The Convention is open to signing by countries and regional economic integration organizations (called "party").
Key clauses
Article 1 stipulates that the Convention applies to international settlement agreements arising from mediation that parties enter into written form to resolve commercial disputes. Article 1 also lists the exceptions not within the scope of the Convention, i.e., settlement agreements entered into by the consumer for personal, family or family purposes, or settlement agreements related to family, inheritance or employment laws. Settlement agreements that can be enforced as judgments or arbitral awards are also excluded from the scope of the Convention to avoid overlap with existing and future conventions, namely the New York Convention on Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (1958), the Convention on Choice of the Court (2005), and the Convention on Judgments being formulated by the Hague Conference on Private International Law.
In addition, Article 3 deals with the key obligations of the parties to the Convention in implementing the settlement agreement and the right of the parties to the dispute to invoke the settlement agreements covered by the Convention. Each party to the Convention may determine the procedural mechanism that can be followed without any requirement provided by the Convention. Article 4 provides the procedures for relying on a settlement agreement, that is, the disputed party shall provide the competent authority with the settlement agreement signed by the disputed party and the evidence that the settlement agreement arises from mediation. The competent authority may request any necessary documents to verify that the requirements of the Convention have been complied with.
Article 5 of the Convention defines reasons for the court to refuse to grant relief on the request of the parties to seek relief. These reasons can be divided into three categories, namely reasons related to the disputed party, settlement agreement and mediation proceedings. Article 5 also includes two other reasons, on which the court may voluntarily refuse to grant relief. These reasons relate to the fact that public policy and the fact that matters of dispute cannot be resolved through mediation. To provide for the most advantageous framework for the application of settlement agreements, Article 7 envisages the application of more advantageous laws or treaties.
Article 8 includes the terms of reservation. The first reservation allows parties to exclude, within the limits provided for in the statement, the settlement agreement between which they are parties or any government agency or any person acting on behalf of a government agency is a party outside the scope of application of the Convention. The second reservation allows parties to declare the application of the Convention only if the parties to the dispute agree to the application of the Convention.
In accordance with Article 9, the Convention and any reservations made thereto apply in the future to the settlement agreement entered into after the Convention enters into force with the parties concerned.
The Convention is consistent with the International Conciliation Agreement Model Law of the International Commercial Mediation and Mediation of UNCITRAL (2018). This approach is intended to provide States with flexibility to adopt both the Convention or Model Law as a separate regulation, as well as the supplementary instrument to the comprehensive legal framework in terms of mediation.
The first batch of contracted countries (46)
The list of countries is as follows (in order of signing):
- Singapore)
- Afghanistan (Afghanistan)
- Belarus (Belarus)
- Brunei(Brunei)
- Burkina Faso(Burkina Faso)
- Chile (Chile)
- China(China)
- Colombia (Columbia)
- The Republic of Congo (Congo )
- Democratic Republic of the Congo)
- Swatini (Eswatini)
- Fiji (Fiji)
- Georgia (Georgia)
- Grenada (Grenada )
- Haiti
- Honduras (Honduras)
- India
- Iran (Iran)
- Israel
- Jamaica )
- Jordan (Jordan )
- Kazakhstan (Kazakhstan)
- Laos (Laos)
- Malaysia (Malaysi a)
- Maldives (Maldives)
- Mauritius (Mauritius)
- Montenegro (Montenegro)
- Nigeria (Nigeria)
- North Macedonia (North Macedonia)
- Palau (Palau)
- Paraguay)
- Philippines (the Philippines)
- Qatar (Qatar)
- Korea (Republic of Korea)
- Samoa (Samoa)
- Saudi Arabia)
- Serbia (Serbia)
- Sierra Leone (Sierra Leone)
- Sri Lanka (Sri Lanka)
- East Timor (Timor-Leste)
- Turkey (Turkey)
- Uganda (Uganda)
- Ukraine (Ukraine)
- United States (United States of America)
- Uruguay (Uruguay)
- Venezuela (Venezuela)
"United Nations Convention on International Reconciliation Agreements Arising from Mediation"
(2018, New York)
(Singapore Mediation Convention)
Source: China Arbitration Week
Wuhan Arbitration Commission (Wuhan International Arbitration HTML Center) Headquarters
- Address: No. 67, Yunlin Street, Taipei Road, Jiang'an District, Wuhan City ml13
- Phone: 027-85711211 (front desk)
- 027-85711205, 85711207
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- Postal code: 430017
Wuhan Arbitration Commission (Wuhan International Arbitration Center) Optics Valley Office
- Address: Optics Valley New World ht, No. 355 Guanshan Avenue, Wuhan No. 7-12, Building A, ml12,
- , Tel: 027-87151567 (front desk)
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Wuhan Arbitration Commission (Wuhan International Arbitration Center) Scope of acceptance:
Wuhan Arbitration Commission (Wuhan International Arbitration Center) Acceptance of civil and commercial disputes between natural persons, legal persons and other organizations with equal subjects in accordance with the law.
When signing the contract, you need to sign the arbitration clause in the contract. The recommended arbitration clause is as follows:
Disputes arising from this contract or related to this contract shall be submitted to the Wuhan Arbitration Commission (Wuhan International Arbitration Center) for arbitration in accordance with the current valid arbitration rules of the association (center) when applying for arbitration. The arbitral award is final and binding on all parties.
