싱가포르협약의 승인을 위한 중국 조정관련 규범의 개정방향에 관한 연구

The changing perception of mediation in the international community, the enactment of the Singapore Convention by UNCITRAL, the enactment of the Uniform Mediation Act in the United States, and China’s mediation-friendly environment all indicate a trend in which mediation is increasingly replacing arbitration as a method of resolving international commercial disputes. Nevertheless, most countries, including South Korea and China, still lack a unified legal framework for mediation, and no legal infrastructure has been established to grant enforceability to settlement agreements resulting from mediation. This presents an obstacle to resolving international commercial disputes. As seen in Chapter 3, China not only has legal provisions that mandate “mediation first,” but also numerous regulations, opinions, and decisions. While this demonstrates that China provides a favorable environment for mediation, it also reveals that the norms related to mediation are scattered and unorganized, making it difficult for practitioners to understand and utilize mediation effectively. In order to ratify the Singapore Convention, China needs to first establish a single mediation law to consolidate the dispersed regulations, and must establish a single, definitive enforcement procedure that grants enforceability to settlement agreements from international commercial mediation. Regarding ad hoc mediation, China must also consider whether to apply different standards for domestic and international mediation, or whether to allow ad hoc mediation for disputes with international elements even within the domestic context. Regarding the qualifications of mediators, if China is to ratify the Singapore Convention, the qualifications of mediators should not be included as grounds for refusal of enforcement.