Keynote Speech by Minister for Law and Second Minister for Home Affairs Edwin Tong SC at Singapore International Mediation Centre (SIMC) Event

“Future of Commercial Diplomacy:
Mediation Amidst Disruptive Technologies and Geopolitics”

Your Excellencies

Mr George Lim SC, Chairman of SIMC

SIMC Board Members

Friends and Colleagues

Distinguished Guests Ladies and Gentlemen

Introduction

1.                 A very good afternoon to all of you. As you know, this week is Singapore Convention Week (SC Week). We are in the middle of lots of activities. It is SIMC event now. Earlier on, I was at the Global Forum on IP. Later on, I will be at the Chief Legal Advisors Forum. Yesterday, we were at the UNCITRAL Academy Conference. You know the movie “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once”? I feel like I am in it. But it is a great week.

2.                 Besides the fact that we have such tremendous number of participation, it is really the quality of the participants, the level of discourse that we have been able to have with all of you, and the level of thought leadership that has come into each of these dialogues, panels, speeches, networking sessions have been really important. So I want to start by thanking all of you – our guests, our visitors, especially those from overseas who come from far away to be with us here at the SC Week this year. Thank you very much. You really honour us with your presence.

Importance of Mediation in Today’s World

3.                 Yesterday, at the UNCITRAL Academy Conference, I spoke about a very important ingredient which is relevant not just to dispute resolution in the general sense and to UNCITRAL’s work, but more importantly, to the work that all of you do as mediation practitioners. That is trust. Trust at the very foundation of the way in which we resolve disputes, particularly in the context of mediation.

4.                 My basic point in the context of the international system is that it is becoming more contested and also more fragmented. Some of the rules, as well as the very institutions that uphold those rules that we relied upon for so long are under greater strain. But at the same time, we cannot ignore cross-border business. It will continue to grow, it will proliferate, and more and more businesses now operate in different jurisdictions. At the same time, therefore, so will cross-border disputes. This makes trusted ways of managing those disputes even more important.

5.                 I believe mediation can play an increasingly important role. There is a certain paradox here. At a time when the world is finding it harder and harder to come to a consensus and to agree, I believe that the ability of parties find agreement through consensus, through a win-win solution, to move forward will now be more important than ever before.

6.                 Mediation does not require parties to agree on everything, contrary to popular opinion. It just creates a process through which they can find enough common ground to move forward, and that is all that is needed. To move forward on the basis that you can preserve the years, if not decades, of hard-earned relationship. To work together, so you can find a solution that perhaps exists outside of the legal framework, and find a way in which you can move on in a cost-efficient as well as amicable fashion.

7.                 This, as I said, can be particularly useful when there is a continuing relationship. Sometimes the most important question is not who was legally right about what happened in the past, but how can parties find a constructive way to work in the future.

8.                 Seen in this way, we should not think of mediation only as an alternative to arbitration or litigation. Yes, they serve different purposes, and sometimes, you will need to go through a litigation or an arbitration, but I believe that mediation can effectively complement arbitration and litigation. So the question is not so much, is it an alternative? But perhaps whether at each stage of disagreement, what mechanism, or what combination of mechanisms, can best serve parties and the dispute?

9.                 In this regard, mediation can play a very different role during the lifecycle of a dispute – before formal proceedings, sometimes alongside them, and sometimes even after a decision has been reached. I used to get a letter from the Singapore Mediation Centre just before appearing at the Court of Appeal, and it says, “Can you mediate your case?” Initially, when I received it, I was quite perplexed. After all, you have already gotten the judgment. There is a successful party, there is an appeal, and it will be very hard in that context to go to mediation.

10.             But after a while, that became a norm You can see the value of doing so even after you have been successfully awarded the judgment. Because you might be able to have better leverage, but you will also be able to guard against an all-or-nothing outcome. So there is never a moment when mediation ought not enter the frame of mind, and across that spectrum, I think it is going to be important.

11.             This is also something that the new NUS Centre for Arbitration and International Dispute Resolution, that I announced yesterday, will examine, How will different dispute resolution mechanisms work together in tandem, rather than to see them as operating in different silos and in different scenarios.

12.             Today, I believe we are beginning to see this thinking extend even to some of the most complex international disputes – those between investors and States. I want to use the remaining time that I have to speak about the role of mediation in investor-State disputes, and also to share some numbers with you to make my case on why I think that role should grow.

Investor-State Mediation

13.             Investor-State dispute settlement has traditionally been associated primarily with arbitration. There are good reasons for that. They typically involve large investments, there will be difficult questions of complex policy, regulation, and of course issues of sovereignty. But, at the same time, precisely because they are so complex, and because they engage a whole set of polycentric issues in a particular dispute, there is growing interest in whether mediation can effectively complement arbitration in these cases.

14.             We already see this in the international architecture that is now quickly developing. In 2022, the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) introduced dedicated Investment Mediation Rules. In 2023, UNCITRAL adopted its Guidelines and Model Provisions on Mediation for International Investment Disputes. In 2025, UNCITRAL followed with its Toolkit on Prevention and Mitigation of International Investment Disputes, placing mediation within a broader range of tools available to both States as well as investors.

15.             ICSID has also been developing the practice. It revived its Investment Mediation Insights series last year, and this year, has explored practical questions, such as: Can we enter amicable settlement, how will States manage investment disputes domestically, and how can mediation and arbitration work together?

16.             All of these measures, including by ICSID as well as UNCITRAL, reflect the growing trend that mediation can be very much embedded into the process. At the same time, this also reflects changes in the business and investment side of things. If you look at the UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD), its database shows that in the 1990s, there were only a handful of known treaty-based cases each year. In recent years, that number has grown to around 60 to 90 annually.

17.             But what is most interesting about these numbers is that about three-quarters of all known cases arose just in the last 15 years. So it does not just tell you what the numbers show, but it tells you the trajectory and the very rapidly growing trend of having these cases occur in the last 15 years. That trend is also an indicator of opportunities that we will have in mediation.

18.             In the same context, the issues at stake in these cases are becoming more complex. Governments are intervening more actively in areas, such as energy security, critical minerals, climate policy, technology, national security. Understandably. These are issues which concern every Government, every sovereign, and it is not unusual to see Governments want to be active in that space. Decisions taken for legitimate public policy reasons can also, at the same time, have major consequences for foreign investments. So, it is a difficult landscape to navigate.

19.             But history tells us that not every dispute needs to travel all the way through an adversarial process to receive an award or to find finality and conclusion. In fact, ICSID’s own experience is instructive in this regard.

20.             In FY2026, 37% of ICSID arbitrations concluded through settlement or discontinuance, so more than a third have found a solution outside of the adversarial process. A separate academic review identified 13 investor-State conciliation proceedings under the ICSID framework, of which 9 had been concluded or settled. Again, the numbers have shown that mediation is on the rise, even in the investor-State disputes space.

21.             Take another active user of the investor-State mechanism – Argentina. Of the 63 arbitrations brought against Argentina, 22 have been settled before the issuance of an award on damages. These are isolated examples, but I think they reflect the trend. These are not all examples of formal mediation, but they demonstrate that even large, complex, politically sensitive investor-State disputes can be resolved consensually. You can also find, in the context of investor-State disputes, mediation can play a role in having a win-win solution as well – for both the investors, as well as for the State.

Gap Between Potential and Use

22.             If that is possible in disputes as difficult as these, mediation surely deserves a place in the broader dispute resolution toolkit. But yet, when we look beyond investor-State disputes to international disputes more generally, its use at the moment is still relatively modest.

23.             In 2025, the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Court of Arbitration received 36 requests for mediation, but when you compare it against its caseload of 881 new arbitration cases, the numbers do show that there is a gap. Likewise, at the International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR), there were 73 new international mediations compared to 725 new international arbitrations. Again, a gap but a gap like that represents opportunity.

24.             I know that these are not perfect comparisons because the cases are different, the complexity of investment-State disputes are often at a different level, but this disparity is difficult to ignore. There remains a gap between what mediation can offer and how routinely it is used. Why is that so? I think part of the answer has historically been around the infrastructure supporting mediation.

25.             For arbitration, and those of you involved in arbitration would know, parties have long had a well-developed framework – the institutions, the rules, the arbitrators, the expertise, academics, and of course, the New York Convention. Mediation does not currently have the same architecture. But, as I said, that gap itself represents an opportunity that can change.

26.             Over the past decade, considerable effort has gone to building the ecosystem for international mediation. You heard Mr Chuan Wee Meng, CEO of SIMC, earlier on SIMC training different countries, training mediators, and over time, growing the thought leadership in different jurisdictions. That itself then leads to accession as well as ratification of the Convention.

27.             Today, we now have the Singapore Convention on Mediation. To date, 60 States have signed the Singapore Convention and 23 have become Parties. If I hear correctly from some of the chatter over coffee, we will expect a few more this year. The New York Convention, by comparison, today has 172 Parties but, of course, it entered into force in 1959, whilst the Singapore Convention only entered into force in 2020.

28.             These things will take a bit of time as Governments study the impact of ratification and understand how it would interact with its own domestic position, and then find ways in which these laws can be introduced through legislation.

29.             Singapore will, of course, continue to do what we can. You saw the video earlier at the Commonwealth Law Ministers meeting in Fiji in February 2026. I was there. I met the Commonwealth Assistant Secretary-General, and he raised with me the idea of working with Singapore: How can we formalise it a bit more? How can we institutionalise the assistance and the cooperation, and to come across as the Commonwealth broadly supporting mediation and to promote the Convention across the Commonwealth?

30.             I, of course jumped at the opportunity and I said, “When can we sign?” He said, “Soon”, and that is what brought Wee Meng to London a couple of weeks ago. As you just saw from the video, the Commonwealth Secretariat and the SIMC signed an MOU earlier this month, and the purpose is to promote the signing, the ratification as well as the implementation of the Convention.

31.             Around the world, other countries are also strengthening their legal frameworks, developing mediation institutions, and I think, most importantly, training mediators. You need a good mediator. Every mediation and the toughest of cases require a good individual who makes all the difference.

32.             I usually tell this story about George. I met George earlier because he was my mediator in a case. He was very good, but he was ultra persistent. I could not leave without signing a mediation agreement. In the end – and George will attest to this – we signed the mediation agreement at 4.30 am. He was right there because he refused to let us go to bed until we signed it. We had come to a consensus. And he said, “ You know, you guys may agree in principle, but when you sleep on it tomorrow, you do something else.” So, he was persistent.

33.             But before that process, parties were very far apart. You need the judgment of the mediator. You need that intuition. You need instinct. You need experience. All of this comes to bear, and in the hands of a good mediator, no case is too complex.

34.             How then do we mainstream mediation a bit more? I will just end this with the rest of my time and tell you a little bit about my thoughts on how we can mainstream it a bit more.

Making Mediation Part of Commerce

35.             Perhaps the starting point is to take a leaf out of what arbitration has done. It might give us the clearest lesson. Arbitration became mainstream because it became routine at the contracting stage. Parties thought about the fact that they might have a dispute and applied their minds to how they might want to resolve the dispute. Institutions developed model clauses. Lawyers understood the model clauses, recommended them, drafted them into the agreements. Standard-form contracts incorporated them. Businesses understood what arbitration meant and agreed on arbitration before any disputes arose.

36.             Mediation has not quite yet reached that level of normalisation. For cross-border relationships – long-term joint ventures, infrastructure projects, supply agreements or technology partnerships – parties can agree upfront how and when mediation can be used.

37.             A clause can identify the trigger, how a mediator will be appointed, the timeframe, and how mediation might fit with subsequent arbitration or litigation, should the mediation, which is consensual, not succeed.

38.             This matters tremendously because timing matters. Once a dispute occurs, lawyers are instructed, positions harden, costs accumulate. Sometimes, there is also face and both sides become increasingly invested in winning. Winning means someone has to lose. Quite often, by that time, both sides are raring for a fight. By then, even suggesting mediation, if it has not been contemplated upfront, can be quite difficult. Neither side wants to make the first move because they do not want to be seen as exhibiting a sign of weakness.

39.             So one lesson from arbitration is very practical. Do not wait until the dispute occurs to decide how the dispute could be managed. Agree on a pathway when the relationship is still good. Then when the dispute arises, proposing mediation will not be seen as a concession by either side. This removes the signalling problem and gives mediation a chance to work before parties and positions become entrenched.

40.             This means broadening the conversation beyond disputes practitioners as well. That is why, for the Singapore Convention Week, we have made a concerted effort to bring along more corporate and commercial lawyers, business leaders, people involved who are outside of the law, who negotiate transactions, and who are at the forefront and cutting edge of commercial transactions.

41.             We brought all of them into the same conversation, because these are often the ones who structure the transactions. They negotiate and then eventually draft the contracts. Importantly, they are vested with the management of the relationships. So, if you want mediation to become part of the architecture of international commerce, then the conversations have to start much earlier, upfront. Before the ink is dry on the agreements, mediation should be thought about.

Conclusion

42.             At the end of the day, let me just say that dispute resolution is not an end in itself. It is a means to an end because businesses are here to do business, not to get involved in resolving disputes. Investors want to invest and want to see the outcome of their investments. And of course, Governments want the economies to grow. We want the industry to succeed. We want flagship companies to do well domestically as well as overseas, and good jobs to be created.

43.             But disputes will arise in the normal context of business. The sooner we can resolve them well, the sooner parties can put their time, energy, resources back into creating value rather than fighting over it. That, ultimately, is why mediation and dispute resolution matters.

44.             There are still many more opportunities over the rest of the Singapore Convention Week, to discuss these ideas, exchange thoughts, discuss best practices, think about training, and most importantly, learn from one another.

45.             Because central to mediation is the cultural nuance behind how we resolve disputes in every different community. Because each of us will have a different approach. Some might do it more formally, some more informally, some take a more familial approach. Behind that is the cultural nuances and context.

46.             So the more we can exchange ideas, the more background we can give each other, the more best practices, tips, good ideas on how we negotiate and manage a very difficult mediation – all of that will be very useful. These are conversations that are best in person, and that is why occasions like this or a chat over lunch or over a coffee oftentimes receive the best networking opportunities.

47.             So I hope that you will make the best use of it. After this, we will have lunch. We will linger around and exchange ideas. Feel free to come up to me with some of your suggestions as well.

48.             But I want to end by thanking all of those who made the trip from far away to be present here in Singapore. Your presence means a lot to us, and we thank you for honouring us with your presence at Singapore Convention Week. Thank you very much.

Last updated on 26 August 2026