Carr: Council could enhance standards
The Lady Chief Justice has suggested that a new mediation council should be set up for civil and commercial matters to bolster England and Wales’s status as a leading international mediation centre”.
Baroness Carr also proposed that England and Wales should have an international dispute resolution academy to promote training and research, like the one in Singapore, and an advisory London dispute resolution committee.
She said India introduced a specific Mediation Act last year, covering civil, commercial and community mediation, and providing for the creation of a Mediation Council of India.
It has the task of laying down guidelines for the education, certification and assessment of mediators by independent mediation institutes.
“It also requires the council to adhere to specific professional and ethical standards for mediators, as well as their training and registration.
“Might we wish to introduce a formal council with a similar role, as a means to not just maintain standards, but enhance them?
“A lot of the work that they carry out is, of course, already carried out here by the Civil Mediation Council, the Family Mediation Council, and organisations like CEDR.
“Might there be a need, however, to broaden out their work along the lines taken in India or those in Singapore?
“This might be particularly important given the growth in international mediation, and in ensuring that England and Wales is best able to operate as a leading international mediation centre.”
The Civil Mediation Council is a membership organisation and registered charity, while the Family Mediation Council is a not-for-profit; unlike the Civil Justice Council, they are not governmental advisory bodies.
Delivering the President’s Circle lecture 2025 at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL), Mediation after the Singapore Convention – which provides a framework for international recognition and enforcement of commercial mediation agreements – Baroness Carr said the Singapore International Dispute Resolution Academy, based at Singapore Management University, opened in 2016.
“Amongst other things it promotes training in negotiation and dispute resolution. It also carries out empirical research on negotiation, international mediation and future developments in dispute resolution.
“One thing that could be considered, to add to our dispute resolution ecosystem, would be the establishment of such an institute within one of our universities, to ensure that ongoing development of mediation and the other two forms of dispute resolution (as well as others) were subject to detailed theoretical and, importantly, empirical research.”
Baroness Carr said the “starting point” for future developments should be that England and Wales took a “considered approach” to mediation, as could be found in Singapore and India.
Singapore had adopted “what could be described as a deliberate and holistic approach to the development of its approach to mediation”, following the government’s decision, in 1996, to establish a committee on alternative dispute resolution.
A London dispute resolution committee, with a broad membership of stakeholders, would make recommendations “on how best we can provide a holistic approach to international mediation, arbitration and litigation… one that views the three as forming a coherent ecosystem”.
If England and Wales was to expand its provision of international mediation in the light of the Singapore Convention, it would “undoubtedly need” to increase the numbers of expert arbitrator-mediators, as well as those who focus on mediation.
“That will call for increased training and the maintenance of high standards, particularly high ethical and professional ones.
“This will be particularly important as one of the grounds that the convention provides for a state to decline to enforce a mediated settlement is a serious breach by a mediator of applicable standards, as well as non-disclosure by a mediator of matters that could call into question their independence or impartiality.”
Baroness Carr added: “To realise fully the opportunities that the Singapore Convention has to offer, there is, I believe, much that could be done and, if done, much that would benefit the future development of effective dispute resolution both here and in other jurisdictions.”
Great thought and collaborations with others across the world to eventually work on a global mediation ecosystem….we at Suluhu Mediation Centre totally support!