By Mylene Chan

Earlier this month, the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law adopted the UNCITRAL Mediation Rules, the UNCITRAL Notes on Mediation, and the Guide to Enactment and Use of the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Mediation and International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation. 

Judith Knieper, Legal Officer at the UNCITRAL Secretariat, at a side forum on investor-state mediation, commented that these texts complete UNCITRAL’s mediation framework, with the milestone 2018 Singapore Convention on international settlement agreements as a pillar. 

Starting in 1980, UNCITRAL began to develop a mediation framework, which now includes the following:

• UNCITRAL Conciliation Rules (1980) (updated in 2021).
• UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Conciliation (2002) (amended in 2018).
• UNCITRAL Guide to Enactment and Use of the 2002 Model Law (2002) (replaced in 2021).
• UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Mediation and International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation (2018) (amending the 2002 Model Law). See page 2 of UNCITRAL Working Document 1073 here.
• The United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation (2018), commonly known as the “Singapore Convention.”
• UNCITRAL Mediation Rules (2021) (updating the 1980 Conciliation Rules)
• UNCITRAL Notes on Mediation (2021).
• Guide to Enactment and Use of the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Mediation and International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation (2021) (replacing the 2002 Guide) (available in the Working Document linked above). 

These texts provide a means for the harmonization of laws, procedural rules, and enforcement mechanisms for international mediation. The most significant tool for international commercial dispute resolution is the Singapore Convention, which enables enforcement of mediated settlement agreements among its signatories.

As a result of the adoption of the Singapore Convention, international businesses now have an effective alternative to litigation and arbitration in resolving cross-border disputes.  Judith Knieper said that 54 states had signed the Singapore Convention, and she said she hoped that more will join as many states are currently engaged in the ratification process.

The UNCITRAL Secretariat has invited CPR to participate as an observer delegation to its Working Group II deliberations, and solicited its comments on the drafts to facilitate finalizing the texts. The UNCITRAL Working Group II is composed of UNCITRAL’s 60-member states and has been developing work focused on mediation, arbitration, and dispute settlement. 

During UNCITRAL’s recent 54th session, which ran from June 28 and concluded July 16, and was held in person in Vienna, Working Group II introduced a number of updated provisions aimed at taking into account recent mediation trends and developments, including court-ordered mediation. See page 2 UNCITRAL Working Document 1074 here. UNCITRAL incorporated Working Group II’s revisions as part of the newly adopted UNCITRAL Mediation Rules.

Major updates in the UNCITRAL Mediation Rules include the following:

• Clarify that the rules apply to mediation regardless of the process’s origin, including an agreement between the parties, an investment treaty, a court order, or a mandatory statutory provision.
• Introduce a definition of mediation.
• Stipulate that in a case of conflict, mandatory provisions in the applicable international instrument, court order, or law will prevail.
• Specify that mediation commences when the disputants agree to engage in the mediation.
• Require disclosure of circumstances regarding impartiality or independence.
• Permit use of alternative means of communication during the mediation and of remote consultations.
• Provide that information shared by parties with the mediator is confidential unless parties express otherwise.
• Update the provisions governing the preparation of settlement agreements to take into account UNCITRAL’s legal framework, including the recently adopted Singapore Convention.  
• Address the interaction between mediation and other proceedings.
• Provide for exclusion of liability for mediators.
• Encourage gender and geographical diversity in selection of mediators.
• Specify that parties and the mediator should agree upfront on the methods of assessing mediation costs, with multiparty mediations shared on a pro rata basis.

UNCITRAL is expected to publish the UNCITRAL Mediation Rules and the UNCITRAL Notes on Mediation together later this year, according to a statement at the end of the session.

UNCITRAL’s work on mediation will continue with the drafting of rules and guidelines relating to investor-state mediation and with work exploring educational best practices, according to an official’s comments in a side forum, which is a lunch-hour roundtable in which UNCITRAL officials discussed topics related to UNCITRAL’s work.

Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law Prof. Lela Love, who is chair of the International Advisory Board on Mediation for the Office of Ombudsman for the United Nations Funds and Programmes, commented about the developments reported here:

All this remarkable focus on mediation—and activity around it—heralds a new era for the dispute resolution process that ideally promotes enhanced understanding, dialogue and creative problem solving.  This may be a renaissance time for mediation—one that is very welcome in the divided and polarized time we inhabit.

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The author, an LLM candidate at Yeshiva University’s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York, has covered UNCITRAL’s 54th Session proceedings as a 2021 CPR Summer Intern.