Today at a ceremony in Singapore, the United Nations
Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from
Mediation, also known as the Singapore Convention, has been signed. A total
of 46 countries signed the Convention at that time – a record
number of first-day signatories for a UN trade convention.
Importantly, they include the world's two largest economies,
China and the US. (A full list of signatories is at the end of this
post).
The aim of the Convention is to implement an international
regime for the enforcement of settlement agreements reached through
mediation, broadly akin to the 1958 New York Convention for the
enforcement of arbitral awards.
The new Convention clearly has the potential to increase the
attraction of mediation for international parties and to solidify
its role as a reliable option for resolving cross-border commercial
disputes, which courts around the world will recognise. Many hope
that it will achieve for mediation what the
