On 7 August 2019, the State Secretary of the Ministry of Justice, Radomir Ilić, signed, on behalf of the Government of the Republic of Serbia, the United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation.
Mr. Ilić stressed that the Republic of Serbia is among the first signatories of the Singapore Convention, positioning itself as one of the pioneers in the international community seeking to achieve greater stability and predictability of international commercial transactions. He added that signing the Convention will contribute to the signatories’ attractiveness as places for doing business and, in, the long term, to their economies.
‘We strongly believe that by providing an effective form of cross-border enforcement, the Convention will encourage parties from different jurisdictions to use mediation more often and to work out creative, win-win solutions to their disputes, therefore making a positive impact on international trade and commerce.’, Mr. Ilić emphasized.
After the signing ceremony, the State Secretary participated at the Roundtable ‘Building Trust, Enabling International Trade’ where in his speech he stressed that the Convention is the result of diligent, multi-year work on the important but delicate issue, shaped by the collaboration and cooperation of more than 85 countries and 35 international organizations.
The Singapore Convention applies to international settlement agreements resulting from mediation, concluded by parties to resolve a commercial dispute. It provides an efficient and harmonized framework for cross-border enforcement of such agreements, in all states which are parties to the Convention. It thereby contributes to strengthening access to justice and the rule of law.
Ministers and senior officials from 70 countries attended the signing ceremony, with a total of 46 countries signing the Convention, including the world’s two largest economies, the US and China, and other important economies for Serbia such as Turkey, Israel, India, as well as countries from the region - Montenegro, North Macedonia, Ukraine, etc.
Mediation is recognized as an efficient dispute resolution mechanism that is flexible and enables parties to work on their own agreement and find the most convenient, creative and comprehensive resolution of their dispute. As a rule, it is cheaper and faster compared to court and arbitral proceedings. For this reason, the development of mediation is considered by the World Bank as one of the relevant factors in compiling of the “Doing Business” ranking list.