Abstract: the United Nations Convention on international settlement agreements arising from mediation was adopted in December 2018, also known as the Singapore mediation Convention (the Convention), which is applicable to international settlement agreements arising from mediation ("settlement agreements")《 The Convention establishes a unified legal framework for the right to invoke and implement settlement agreements. As a binding international instrument, the Convention is expected to enhance the certainty and stability of the international mediation framework, so as to promote the application of mediation in the settlement of international commercial disputes.

Mediation - "mediate; Make peace "means to mediate between the two parties in order to make them reconcile. In other words, mediation refers to the activities of a third party other than the two parties to dredge and persuade the two parties to a dispute, promote their mutual understanding, negotiate, voluntarily reach an agreement and solve the dispute on the basis of national laws, regulations and policies and social ethics. As early as a thousand years ago, our ancient ancestors had the social ideals of "harmony" and "Great Harmony", and respected the dispute mediation concepts of "no litigation" and "harmony is precious". It is recorded in the epitaph of the prince of Zuo Si Lang in the province of Zhongshu in Jiangnan and other places written by Song Lian of the Ming Dynasty: "Xie Zaixing, the garrison general of Zhuji, violated the words of Wang Jia, the commander of the Ministry, and caused several disturbances. The public was ordered to mediate." It can be seen that mediation, as an effective way of dispute settlement, has been officially recognized and favored at that time.

Key words: good offices, mediation, reaching an agreement, resolving disputes

01  preface

The United Nations Convention on international settlement agreements arising from mediation (hereinafter referred to as "Singapore mediation Convention") was born to promote the convenient and rapid implementation of mediation agreements. The Multilateral Convention gives the enforceability of international commercial settlement agreements reached by mediation, Its main purpose is to encourage the development of mediation in the same way as the Convention on the recognition and enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (hereinafter referred to as the "New York Convention") promotes the development of arbitration.

Since the "one belt, one road" initiative was put forward in 2013, the economic contacts between China and other countries and other countries along the coast have been increasing. The disputes and disputes have also increased. Our country is exploring and establishing an effective mechanism to solve international commercial disputes.

This paper will be divided into two parts to specifically discuss the purpose, main contents and key provisions of the Singapore conciliation convention, the reasons and significance of China's accession to the Convention and the impact after China's accession to the Convention.

02  Purpose of formulation

The Singapore conciliation convention is a new multilateral treaty formulated by the United Nations Commission on international trade law. It provides a unified and effective framework for the implementation of settlement agreements on international commercial disputes. The Convention on the recognition and enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (i.e. the New York Convention) signed in 1968 has greatly promoted the development of international commercial arbitration, while there is a lack of multilateral international treaties on the implementation of settlement agreements in the field of mediation, which makes the parties to international commercial transactions reluctant to resort to mediation. Therefore, the advantages of mediation in saving the cost of the parties and maintaining the friendly relationship between the parties can not be brought into play.

Recognizing such needs of the international community, the United Nations Commission on international trade law actively promoted and experienced many meetings and discussions. Finally, the text of the Singapore conciliation convention was finalized on June 25, 2018 and opened for signature in August 2019 after it was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly.

The Singapore mediation convention stipulates the implementation framework of international commercial dispute mediation, provides a guarantee for the implementation of mediation agreements, makes up for the gap in the implementation mechanism of international commercial mediation, is conducive to safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of the parties, building harmonious commercial relations, and providing a good business environment for the development of international economy and trade. At the same time, by providing an implementation framework for international commercial mediation agreements, the Singapore mediation convention aims to promote the settlement of international commercial disputes by mediation, encourage the parties to try mediation in the settlement of international commercial disputes, and establish a set of safeguard mechanism to ensure that the settlement agreements reached through mediation can be directly implemented. Generally speaking, the Singapore mediation convention promotes the smooth progress of mediation by giving a higher level of protection to the mediation agreement within the scope of application, that is, by enforcing one party to relieve the other party《 While giving the enforcement power to the mediation agreement, the Singapore mediation convention also relieves the parties to the mediation agreement from the pre procedure and burden arising in the process of requesting the courts of other countries to recognize and implement the international mediation agreement, which greatly facilitates the implementation of the international mediation agreement.

As a friendly way of dispute resolution, mediation is also known as "justice between friends". Mediation is conducive to creating honest, friendly and harmonious business relations, but it is also due to its high degree of autonomy, especially after mediation, the mediation agreement reached between the parties to the dispute still belongs to the category of voluntary performance, which makes mediation weak in implementation compared with litigation and arbitration《 The purpose of Singapore mediation convention is to solve the cross-border implementation of the settlement agreement reached by the parties through mediation《 As the "last line of defense" for the implementation of mediation agreements, Singapore mediation convention can not only provide implementation guarantee for the parties, but also improve the extraterritorial recognition of mediation agreements, and play a role in encouraging and supporting the use of mediation to solve disputes to a certain extent.

03  Main contents and key terms

（1） Main content: promote the implementation of international reconciliation agreements formed through mediation

There are 16 articles in the Singapore conciliation convention, including the scope of application, definitions, general principles, requirements for relying on the settlement agreement, reasons for refusing to grant relief, parallel applications or requests, other laws or treaties, reservations, the effect on the settlement agreement, the depositary, etc. The purpose is to establish the International Settlement Agreement arising from mediation as a feasible law Countries with different social and economic systems accept the framework, so as to promote the development of harmonious international economic relations. This paper will analyze and explain the Singapore mediation convention from the following aspects.

About scope of application

01

The Singapore conciliation Convention applies to international agreements arising from conciliation and concluded in writing by the parties for the settlement of commercial disputes because at least two parties have places of business in different countries, Or the country where the parties to the settlement agreement have their places of business is not the country where a considerable part of the obligations stipulated in the settlement agreement are performed or the country most closely related to the matters covered by the settlement agreement, so it becomes an international agreement.

At the same time, the Singapore mediation convention stipulates the "negative list" from two aspects: first, it does not apply to consumer rights disputes, marriage and family inheritance disputes and labor disputes, that is, the Singapore mediation Convention does not apply to agreements concluded to resolve disputes arising from the transaction of one party (consumer) for personal, family or household purposes, And agreements relating to family law, inheritance law or employment law. In other words, the Singapore conciliation Convention does not apply to consumer disputes and agreements related to marriage, family and labor law. Secondly, the Singapore mediation Convention does not apply to agreements approved by the court or concluded in judicial proceedings and agreements that can be enforced as judgments in the country where the court is located, nor to agreements that can be enforced as arbitral awards, which makes the way of reconciliation and mediation of international commercial dispute settlement different from judicial and arbitration.

We understand that, on the one hand, the Singapore mediation Convention applies to international commercial disputes with transnational factors (the place of business of the parties, the place where the obligations of the settlement agreement are performed, the place where the international commercial disputes are most closely related, etc.), and pure domestic commercial mediation does not apply to the Singapore mediation convention. On the other hand, according to the definition of "mediation" in Article 2 of the Singapore mediation convention, the settlement agreement reached by the disputing parties through consultation does not apply to the Singapore mediation convention.

On the implementation method of mediation

02

The Singapore mediation Convention does not provide a specific way of mediation implementation, which will give states parties greater flexibility and autonomy. At the same time, the Convention requires each party to implement the settlement agreement in accordance with its own procedural rules and in accordance with the conditions set out in the Convention; If a dispute arises over a matter that a party claims has been resolved by a settlement agreement, a party to the Convention shall allow the party to invoke the settlement agreement in accordance with its own procedural rules and in accordance with the conditions set forth in the Convention to prove that the matter has been resolved. At the same time, the parties need to provide the competent authorities of the parties to the convention where the relief is sought with the settlement agreement signed by the parties and the evidence showing that the settlement agreement originated from mediation. "The evidence showing that the settlement agreement originated from mediation" includes the settlement agreement signed by the mediator, the documents signed by the mediator indicating mediation, and the certificate of the mediation process management organization.

On refusal of execution

03

Article 5 of the Singapore mediation convention stipulates that a Contracting State may refuse to implement the settlement agreement: one party to the settlement agreement is in a certain state of incapacity, the settlement agreement has validity problems or has been modified, the obligations in the settlement agreement have been performed or are unclear and unable to be performed, and the granting of relief is contrary to the provisions of the settlement agreement, The mediator violates the rules or is unfair. At the same time, the Singapore conciliation convention further stipulates the reservation of public policy, that is, when granting relief will violate the public policy of the parties to the Convention, it can refuse to grant relief.

（2） Key terms

Article 1

Article 1 stipulates that the Convention applies to international settlement agreements concluded in writing by the parties for the settlement of commercial disputes arising from mediation. Article 1 also lists exceptions outside the scope of the Convention, i.e. settlement agreements concluded by consumers for personal, family or family purposes, or settlement agreements related to family, inheritance law or employment law. Settlement agreements that can be enforced as judgments or arbitral awards are also excluded from the scope of the Convention in order to avoid overlap with existing and future conventions, namely the New York Convention on the recognition and enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (1958), the Convention on choice of Court Agreements (2005) and the Convention on judgments being prepared by the Hague Conference on private international law.

Article 3

Article 3 deals with the key obligations of the parties to the Convention in the implementation of the settlement agreement and the right of the disputing party to invoke the settlement agreement covered by the Convention《 Each party to the Convention may determine the procedural mechanisms to be followed in the absence of any requirements under the Convention. Article 4 stipulates the procedures for relying on the settlement agreement, that is, the disputing party shall provide the competent authority with the settlement agreement signed by the disputing party and the evidence that the settlement agreement originated from mediation. The competent authority may request any necessary documents to verify that the requirements of the Convention have been complied with.

Article 5

Article 5 of the Convention defines the grounds on which the court may refuse to grant relief at the request of the party against whom relief is sought. These reasons can be divided into three categories: those related to the disputing parties, settlement agreements and mediation procedures. Article 5 also includes two other grounds on which the court may voluntarily refuse to grant relief. These reasons relate to public policy and the fact that contentious matters cannot be resolved through mediation. In order to provide the most favourable framework for the application of settlement agreements, Article 7 envisages the application of more favourable laws or treaties.

Article 8

Article 8 includes a reservation clause. The first reservation allows parties to the Convention to exclude from the scope of application of the Convention, to the extent specified in the declaration, settlement agreements to which they are a party or settlement agreements to which any government agency or any person acting on behalf of a government agency is a party. The second reservation allows the parties to the Convention to declare that the Convention applies only if the parties to the dispute agree to apply the Convention.

Article 9

In accordance with Article 9, the Convention and any reservations made to it shall apply in the future to settlement agreements concluded after the entry into force of the Convention for the parties concerned.

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The Convention is consistent with the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Conciliation and international settlement agreements arising from conciliation (2018). This approach is intended to provide flexibility for states to adopt either the Convention or the model law as a separate statute or as a supplementary instrument to the comprehensive legal framework for mediation, and to adopt both the Convention and the model law at the same time.