Insights

“It is truly a historic moment,” George said, opening a post-lunch panel session during the Singapore Convention Signing Ceremony and Conference. “Three years ago, would we have thought this would become a reality?”

46 countries were the first to sign the international treaty, with Singapore Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam the first to ink it on behalf of the city-state.

Like most Asian cultures, mediation has a long history in Laos and is embraced for its non-adversarial, non-confrontational nature. 

At the grassroots level, Village Mediation Units in Laos play a vital role in providing conflicting parties an option for the peaceful settlement of their disputes, in line with the Lao culture of respecting traditional and religious values of unity and harmony...

Dispute resolution in India has been the matter of much consternation. One is wary of approaching the courts, due to its lengthy and time-consuming process as well as the infamous delays. The usual alternative to courts, arbitration, has had mixed success. The fact that India remains a strong economy and that disputes are inevitable remains constant. In such a situation, whilst traditional...

A distinguished panel led by SIMC CEO Aloysius Goh at this year’s IPBA highlights the future of cross-border mediation ahead of the Singapore Convention on Mediation.

In Japan, the means to end private, commercial disputes amicably appears to be gaining traction.

In India, a taste for revenge is but one of the bumps to championing greater use of mediation, writes Laila T Ollapally. Legislation reform and India being a signatory to the Singapore Convention could turn things around.

As mediators, we walk a delicate line between acknowledging and valuing the realities of the past and the present, with all the dysfunction and failings which have contributed to the conflict, and focusing on the present and the future with the opportunities they present to shape something new. Both are important, neither can be short-changed. I wrote about this some time ago when I referred to...