Sage Mediation has recently concluded the Aranda Series: International Mediation Leaders Programme. Mr Alexis Mourre, President of the International Chamber of Commerce International Court of Arbitration gave the Keynote Address.
You may read the full text of the keynote speech below:
“Just barely over a year ago, we celebrated and welcomed the signature of the United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreements resulting from Mediation, otherwise known as the Singapore Convention on Mediation, in Singapore.[1]
Now, we watch with anticipation as Singapore, together with Fiji and Qatar, deposited their instruments of ratification for the Singapore Convention on Mediation earlier this month.
The Convention has finally entered into force as of 12 September 2020.[2] To-date, Belarus, Ecuador and Saudi Arabia have also ratified the Singapore Convention on Mediation, providing for its entry into force at a later stage.
What next now? This is surely the question in everyone’s mind.
The entry into force of the Singapore Convention on Mediation is a major milestone in the development of mediation as a real option, not just an alternative option, for dispute resolution.
However, while this is an important step in this journey, this is just the beginning. A journey that the practice of arbitration had also to travel through in order to develop into what it is today. Arbitration is now the normal way of resolving international business disputes. At the beginning, however, court litigation was still the norm. Most international disputes were resolved in court.
In the aftermath of the First World War the international community started to look at the development of a multilateral system of rules able to govern trade, investment, finance and commercial relations. That was part of a much more global aspiration that law would bring peace. The ICC was then founded, by a group of entrepreneurs who called themselves the “Merchants of Peace”.[3] The ICC founders believed that the private sector has an important role to fulfil in helping to frame that new legal and business environment. Two years after ICC’s foundation in 1919, a set of regulations establishing the early ICC arbitration and conciliation rules were drawn up at its 1st Congress. Then, in 1923, the International Court of Arbitration was created.
All this, of course, could not prevent another world war. But the ICC did not abandon its efforts.
In the early 1950-ies, the ICC took the initiative of promoting a new international convention, which would ensure the effectiveness of arbitration agreements and arbitral awards. That was the New York Convention, the cornerstone of modern international arbitration. The most successful international instrument ever. 165 signatory states committing to recognise arbitration agreements and to enforce foreign awards under minimal conditions.
Will mediation travel the same journey? The future will tell. However, many reasons should lead to believe that the Singapore Convention is promised to a bright future. Arbitration, as we all know, has become too long, too complex and too costly. Business are – rightly so – looking at alternative ways of resolving those business disputes that do not need to be litigated. The recognition and enforcement and mediation agreements, and the ensuing settlement contracts, are, however, subject to too many uncertainties.
Hence the utility of the Singapore Convention. It could not have been more timely.
As the Covid-19 pandemic plunges the world into the most severe recession since 1929, and hundreds of thousands of families are plunged into mourning and many more into distress, it is more than ever necessary to ensure that international disputes are resolved without delays and that unnecessary costs are spared to the parties.
With the pandemic, where we are facing disruptions on multiple fronts, whether due to national travel restrictions or disruptions to key services such as postal communications or banking institutions, or even the closure of offices where employees are limited by the constraints of working from home.
These are times in which it is more than ever necessary to revisit our practices.
Arbitration is quickly evolving to a new world where the use of remote means of communication, as well as the use digital platforms and the advent of artificial intelligence, will completely change our way of litigating disputes.
Mediation will also, of course, take advantage of the new opportunities offered by technology.
As part of that revolution, negotiation, conciliation and mediation will acquire unprecedented relevance. In some parts of the world, it is already deeply embedded into the culture. In others, that is not yet the case, and I am sure that in Latin America in particular, we will witness a very significant evolution in the years to come.
All this will bring us into an era where mediation will no longer be an exception, as arbitration was in its infancy, but will be a normal feature in any strategy to resolve a business difference, however large or small as it may be.
For this, I have no doubt that the Singapore Convention is promised to a bright future.”
Footnotes:
[1] The Singapore Convention was opened for signature on 7 August 2019.
[2] https://uncitral.un.org/en/texts/mediation/conventions/international_settlement_agreements/status
[3] https://iccwbo.org/about-us/who-we-are/history/
The Aranda Series: International Mediation Leaders Programme is Sage Mediation’s flagship programme. Held annually, it gathers mediation professionals from around the world who wish to play an active role in mediation thought leadership and to gain insight how their mediation practice may continue to evolve. For more information on Aranda or Sage’s other training programmes, click here.
