The Seminar on “the Singapore Convention and the Mediation System in China”, organized by the International Economic Law Department of CASS Institute of International Law, was held in Beijing on March 18, 2019. The seminar was attended by over 20 experts and scholars from the National People’s Congress, the Supreme People’s Court, the Ministry of Commerce, CASS Institute of International Law, China University of Political Science and Law, China Foreign Affairs University, and Zhong Lun Law Firm.
The seminar was divided into five units. At the first unit, the opening ceremony, Professor Mo Jihong, Director of CASS Institute of International Law, gave a speech in which he welcomed the experts and scholars to the seminar, introduced them to the history of his Institute, shared with them his own experience in mediation, and wished them great success at the seminar.
In the second unit, keynote presentation, Mr. Wen Xiantao, Chief of the Treaty and Law Department of the Ministry of Commerce, gave a presentation entitled “The Singapore Convention and Commercial Mediation in China”. In the third and fourth units, the participants gave presentations and carried out discussions on various issues around the theme of the seminar, including judicial sovereignty and state public policies relating to mediation, the significance of the studies on the Singapore Convention to the development of the commercial law in China, the significance of China’s accession to the Singapore Convention, the Singapore Convention and the optimization of China’s business environment, false mediation, the linkage between the Singapore Convention and China’s mediation system, the participation in mediation by state owned enterprises, the construction of the commercial system in China, the revision of the Chinese Law on People’s Mediation, the enforcement of mediation agreements, and the reasonable distribution of judicial resources in China.
In the fifth unit, the closing ceremony, Professor Liu Jingdong, the head of the International Economic Law Department of CASS Institute of International Law, summarized the issues discussed at the seminar and pointed out that currently the international commercial mediation system in China is still at the primary stage of its development. Although there is a controversy in the theoretical circle, the development and improvement of the commercial mediation system is inevitable and it is necessary to disseminate the advanced ideas about mediation embodied in the Singapore Convention.
