Overview

            States must resolve their disputes peacefully. This obligation is enshrined in Article 33(1) of the Charter of the United Nations, which recognises many valid and useful paths to peaceful resolution beyond the well-known methods of adjudication and arbitration. These other paths include “negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, … resort to regional agencies or arrangements” and indeed any “other peaceful means of [the parties’] own choice.” However, relative to studies of adjudication and arbitration, there are few systematic treatments of non-adjudicative dispute resolution options in international law scholarship.

            The International Law Association (ILA) Committee on Alternative Dispute Resolution in International Law was formally approved in 2022 with the mandate to raise awareness of the potential contributions of “alternative” (defined as “non-adjudicative”) dispute resolution (ADR) to international law. The Committee’s Final Report and Resolution will provide concrete guidance for practitioners and governments in their choice of procedure to resolve international disputes. In the Committee’s ongoing early phase, the Committee is working inductively through its members’ case studies to: (i) establish a taxonomy of ADR mechanisms; (ii) analyse what worked well and what did not; (iii) and identify appropriate dispute resolution pathways for specific dispute categories. The Committee will submit its Preliminary Report to the International Law Association (ILA) Executive Council in January 2024, ahead of the June 2024 ILA Biennial Conference in Athens, Greece. As part of its preparation, the Committee is pleased to hold its Singapore virtual meeting in partnership with the CIL International Dispute Resolution Programme.

Modalities

            The opening plenary is a fireside chat with Professor Tommy Koh, Emeritus Professor of Law at the National University of Singapore, CIL International Advisory Panel Chairperson and Ambassador-at-Large in the Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

            Committee members will then come together in facilitated discussions to exchange key learning points from their case studies and generate provisional lines of inquiry for the Committee’s next steps. Committee members unable to join due to time zone difference will be consulted on the discussion topics through written survey (to be distributed on e-mail by Monday 2 October 2023).

         To encourage an inclusive and open atmosphere, the meeting will be held under the Chatham House Rule, which reads:

“When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule,
participants are free to use the information received,
but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s),
nor that of any other participant, may be revealed.”

           As indicated in the programme, the facilitated discussions will be live-transcribed and recorded by CIL purely to assist the production of the meeting report. No other recording of any kind is permitted. To safeguard the observance of the Chatham House Rule, we seek your understanding that the CIL transcript and recording will be deleted at the earliest opportunity and will not otherwise be available (including to Committee members).

            The meeting will be conducted in English.

Detailed programme: https://tinyurl.com/singaporevirtual16oct

Who Should Attend?

            The Singapore virtual meeting is part of the Committee’s work programme and is hosted by CIL. We encourage all Committee members who can to join the meeting live. We encourage those who cannot join live to contribute to the discussions by written survey. We are also pleased to open the meeting to CIL researchers and invited guests with ADR expertise.

            In addition, the Singapore virtual meeting welcomes ADR researchers and practitioners, as well as government officials responsible for the policy and practice of international dispute resolution. In view of the meeting modalities, we ask that you only register if you have concrete practical or scholarly expertise in negotiation, enquiry, fact-finding, conciliation, good offices through regional or international organisations, or other peaceful dispute resolution methods apart from arbitration or adjudication. We also ask that you allow our facilitators to manage speaking order and discussion flow.

Please register your interest to attend before Monday 2 October 2023. Committee members, CIL researchers, invited guests and confirmed registrants will receive pre-meeting reading and the joining link before Monday 9 October 2023.

Committee members: please submit your case studies (or revised case studies) to the specified submission folder before Monday 2 October 2023.