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Snapshot

  • Sixty years on from the New York Convention, another document is set to go before the UN General Assembly with the potential to reshape alternate dispute resolution and enforcement throughout the world.
  • Assuming it will be adopted, it will become known as the Singapore Convention 2018 and will provide enforcement rights to settlement agreements reached during mediation.

On 10 June 1958, the rather innocuously entitled document ‘E/CONF.26/8’ was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Sixty years on, the New York Convention, as it is better known, arguably enjoys the greatest impact of any one single instrument adopted by the General Assembly. Currently, 153 of the 193 United Nations member States are signatories and much of the cross border trade and commerce seen throughout today’s world relies upon it for dispute resolution and enforcement processes.

Now a new document, ‘A/CN.9/942’, will be before the General Assembly during its 73rd session commencing on 18 September 2018. Like the New York Convention before it, this document also has the potential to reshape alternate dispute resolution and enforcement throughout the world.

The text of this document, assuming it will be adopted, will become known as the ‘Singapore Convention 2018’ (the text of the draft convention is entitled United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreements resulting from Mediation) and will provide enforcement rights to settlement agreements reached during mediation. The proposed title derives its name from the nationality of the Working Group’s Chairperson, Ms Natalie Yu Lin Morris Sharma of Singapore. The Working Group’s Rapporteur was Mr Khory McCormick of Australia.

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