In their reform discussions, States and arbitration institutions have been exploring the potential for investor-State mediation to work alongside arbitration, or even to replace it altogether for some disputes. While investor-State mediation has strengths relative to arbitration, any reform must carefully integrate mediation with existing processes and reform efforts.1)This post builds on: Esmé Shirlow, ‘The…

Arbitration has undoubtedly become the dominant international procedure for settling investor-State disputes. Over the years, we have published various posts on the Blog that have considered intersections and tensions between arbitration and other, alternative, forms of investor-State dispute settlement (‘ISDS’). To mark this month’s entry into force of the Singapore Convention on Mediation, our series…

Arbitration has been the default dispute resolution mechanism in the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) regime for a long time. Provisions for third-party procedures other than arbitration have been relatively rare in older generation bilateral investment treaties (BITs). Even where those have provided in advance for the option of ICSID (Convention or Additional Facility) Conciliation Rules,…

As the global pandemic has constrained in-person gatherings, many arbitration practitioners will have foregone most of their summer travel. Fortunately, for this summer’s holiday (quiz), we can all take a trip together to Transparency Land, where all arbitrators and institutions are above average, but may not all be equal in how they manage proceedings. With…

Co-organised by YSIAC’s Ms Kirsten Teo and Young ICSID’s Ms Celeste Salinas Quero, this YSIAC-Young ICSID webinar on the impact of the Singapore Convention on Mediation (“Convention”) on international investment disputes brought together five visionary speakers across four time-zones and attracted hundreds of attendees from 50 countries worldwide. With Mr Diogo Pereira (Partner, De Almeida…

“I prefer to hope that this shift in perspective will be a chance for people, organisations, businesses, politics, whatever, to put so many of their ongoing disputes and conflicts aside because with this new perspective comes the realisation that these are not worth fighting. It is time to cooperate. May we go through and come…

Dr. Li Hu is Deputy Secretary-General of China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (“CIETAC”), Vice Chairman of China Maritime Arbitration Commission, and also Board Member of the Arbitration Institute of Stockholm Chamber of Commerce. He has authored several publications on dispute resolution in China and has served as arbitrator in over 120 domestic and…

“the money’s not about the money…The key to settlement lay not in the realm of calculation and rationality but in the more opaque social world of face, punishment, justice and emotion.” Charlie Irvine in Not about the money? The end of 2019 and the start of 2020 offered a rich variety of posts on the…

“Yet for me the same nagging question continued: what are our values? Conflict seems to touch people at the deepest levels: it brings into play ‘their judgement of what is valuable or important in life.’ Yet the values of the mediator seem to be invisible.” Charlie Irvine in Mediation’s Values: Still searching. August and September…

On August 26, 2019, Brazil’s President sanctioned Statute # 13.867/2019, which inserts provisions in the Brazilian expropriation for public utility statute (Federal Decree 3.365/41). One of the most innovative provision of Brazil’s new law is the possibility of submitting disputes related to expropriations to mediation and arbitration, according to Brazil’s mediation Statute and arbitration Statute….

International arbitration and mediation are often viewed as opponents in an antagonistic battle for the hearts, minds and wallets of disputants. The fear of arbitration losing its status as the most preferred form of alternative dispute resolution is palpable: Mediation’s key disadvantage has long been the difficulty of enforcing mediated settlement agreements. But the United…

1. Complex Multi-faceted Tensions between Japan and Korea A media and geopolitical storm recently erupted after Japan introduced measures affecting exports to the Republic of Korea (Korea). Thunder sounded with Japan’s imposition of certification requirements on three chemicals needed by South Korean companies to make semiconductors, memory chips and displays for consumer electronics (the 4…

Our previous posting set out the background to the current trade tension between Korea and Japan. It outlined the possibility of Japan bringing claims under a 1965 Treaty that purported to settle claims resulting from Japan’s colonisation of Korea, or under two investment treaties, regarding Korean courts recently ordering Japanese companies to pay compensation to…

“Listening conveys respect to the speaker, which in turn engenders respect for the listener. People who are respected because they listen will have more influence when they speak.” Bill Marsh in Don’t Sit On Your Ass[ets] – Part 2: The Arguments. Over the last couple of months, the Kluwer Mediation Blog has offered posts on…

Arbitration is often used to resolve financial disputes in China. For example, China’s financial regulation organs, i.e., People’s Bank of China, China Securities Regulatory Commission, China Insurance Regulatory Commission and China Banking Regulatory Commission, each have made efforts in promoting the use of arbitration in their regulated areas of business. Data released by the Ministry…

“In negotiations of all kinds, the greater your capacity for empathy – the more carefully you try to understand all of the other side’s motivations, interests and constraints – the more options you tend to have for potentially resolving the dispute or deadlock”. Deepak Malhotra of Harvard Business School quoted by John Sturrock in Process…

“Conversation – respectful, engaged, reciprocal, calling forth some of our greatest powers of empathy and understanding – is the moral form of a world governed by the dignity of difference.” Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, The Dignity of Difference, quoted by Ian Macduff in “Signs of hope” Following on from yesterday’s post, this second post offers…

“[…] one of the several paradoxes of mediation is that in many cases, the more logical, the more persuasive the argument, the more contrary and extreme the response. And in fact, what is needed, is the ability of advocates, and more so mediators, to build trust and create rapport.  A mystical concept for some, instantly…

For many years, arbitration has been the de facto vehicle of choice for the resolution of investor-state disputes. However, despite the wholesale and widespread adoption of mediation in every sort of dispute, mediation is used rarely in investor-state disputes (Systra v. Philippines is one example). As of this writing, only 11 (1.3% of total ICSID…

The end of 2018 and the start of 2019 brought the usual diversity of posts on the Kluwer Mediation Blog.   Topics addressed include: recent legislation on mandatory mediation in Turkey, lessons on mediators’ liability from a New Zealand Court of Appeal decision, reflections from the recent “Tbilisi Mediation Days” conference in Georgia, and the recent…

As the end of the Year of the Dog approaches, we look back at five noteworthy developments in the arbitration world in PR China, Hong Kong and Central Asia and their coverage on our Blog. 1. New HKIAC Arbitration Rules and the Prominence of Hong Kong as an Arbitral Seat Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre…

“Mediating is, in the end, service. Humility is its fertile soil.” Bill Marsh in “David Richbell – Lessons in Life and Mediation” The last couple of months have offered a collection of compelling posts on the Kluwer Mediation Blog. From the analysis of court decisions in Canada and Singapore on the enforcement of mediated settlement…

Introduction Unquestionably, Spain captures the highest percentage of arbitration procedures for cuts applied to renewable energies, accumulating almost thirty ongoing lawsuits from foreign investors, with claims pending in the ICSID, in the SCC and in the ICC arbitrations. Spain as the respondent was successful in the first two arbitrations, but these were unique cases and…

Are litigation, arbitration and mediation competitive, collaborative or cooperative? Is litigation becoming an “alternative” to “alternative dispute resolution”, especially keeping arbitration on top of its game? Are mixed processes or combined regimes becoming the preference? These questions were part of the timely and timeless theme for this year’s Taipei International Conference on Arbitration and Mediation…