By Hew Zhan Tze

After years of negotiations, the Singapore Convention on Mediation last week reached the signature phase.

That means that countries around the globe can sign on, and ratify, a treaty designed to boost the use and support for mediation in cross-border transactions.

The convention is officially known as the United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation, and is available at https://bit.ly/2YWbHKN.

On Aug. 7, more than 1,500 international delegates from 70 countries attended a Singapore signing ceremony.

A total of 46 countries–including the United States and China–signed the convention on the first day. (The full list is available from the United Nations at http://bit.ly/2ZPFGFl.)

The convention is a product of the efforts of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law Working Group II to alleviate the difficulties of enforcing a cross-border settlement agreement reached from mediation. It can only come into effect after six months, and after three signatory countries ratify the treaty. See Article 14(1) of the Singapore Convention at the first link above.

Ratification is a signatory country’s domestic procedure where treaty approval is sought, and necessary legislation is enacted to give effect to the convention.

Generally, in the United States, a treaty can only be ratified by the president after receiving the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate. The Senate must pass a ratification resolution, requiring a two-thirds approval.  See U. S. Const. Art. II, § 2 (available at https://bit.ly/2zBgoge).

The Singapore Convention’s goals have been likened to a mediation version of the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, best known as the New York Convention. (Available at http://bit.ly/2KHaa5W.)

The large number of initial signatories to the Singapore Convention appears to show a positive reception toward easing enforcement of a settlement agreement obtained from other similarly bound jurisdictions. This is in comparison to the 10 signatures received at the launch of the New York Convention six decades ago. The increase in numbers likely reflects an increased recognition of the effectiveness of ADR methods.

* * *

More analysis on the Singapore Convention on Mediation will appear in the September Alternatives to the High Cost of Litigation, available soon at altnewsletter.com.

The author was a CPR Institute Summer 2019 intern.