ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) includes different kind of proceedings representing viable options to court litigation.

Among these, arbitration, for history and tradition, is to be considered the most important in dealing with commercial international relationships.

The success of the ADR mean at hand, has its source in the wide number of states that joined the New York Convention of 1958 on the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards.

Notably, over the last few years, there was a significant increase in parties’ recourse to another dispute resolution proceeding: mediation.

This circumstance is well testified at both a European level by Directive 52/2008/CE and at a national level by Legislative Decree n. 28 of 2010.

The interest built around the latter mean of dispute resolution is to be found in its wide accessibility, in its lower costs and the prompt solution it offers.

However, the lack, at an international level, of a mechanism susceptible of making enforceable the mediation settlement has always represented perhaps the main obstacle to the diffusion of the ADR mechanism at hand.

For such reasons, at the beginning of 2014, the U.S. proposed to UNCITRAL the development of a multiparty International Convention in matter of enforcement of International mediation settlement reached in commercial disputes.

The aforementioned international organization started to deepen the matter and on June 26^th, 2018, during the 51^st UNCITRAL working session, the final draft of the Convention on a common framework in matter of mediation with the relating model law were approved.

The Convention represent the outcome of a long process carried out by UNCITRAL II working group, 85 member states plus 35 entities among governmental and non-governmental organisations.

This International instrument has the aim of implementing an international system of enforcement of mediation settlements inspired by the New York Convention of 1958 in matter of arbitral awards enforcement.

The Convention will be named “Singapore Mediation Convention”, in reason of the importance obtained by Singapore in the field of international commercial mediation over the last years.

With this Convention, UNCITRAL has also amended its Model Law on International Commercial Conciliation of 2002.

The original version of such Model Law was created to afford States with a viable option in reforming and modernizing their laws about mediation and it was amended in 2018 with the addiction of another section about settlement agreements and their application.

Moreover, in its previous version, the words “mediation” and “conciliation” were used as interchangeable terms, while in the current version UNCITRAL opted for the use of the sole word “mediation” in order to make the Convention and the Model Law more user friendly.

In relation to its scope, the Convention is applicable to “international settlements resulting from mediation” resulting from commercial dispute, but settlement agreements, approved from the court or concluded in proceedings, having the same effects of judicial decision in the state of the court or given the same automatic enforceability of arbitral awards, are excluded from the application of the Convention.

The reason for the aforementioned exclusions is that they fall within the scope of other widely in use international instruments, such as the New York Convention of 1958 and the Hague Choice of Court Convention.

As to the mechanism of enforcement provided by the Convention: the party, who wishes to enforce the settlement shall attach the mediation agreement and the proof that the same is the result of the mediation to the request of enforcement addressed to the relevant authority of the place of enforcement.

In this way the enforcement of mediation settlements between companies, having their seat in different countries will become easier.

The party will thus become able to address the court of the member state in which enforcement is sought, instead of having to obtain a court ruling for breach of contract.

The said court will enforce the settlement agreement in accordance with the national rules of the state of enforcement and under the conditions set forth the Convention.

The Convention of Singapore will be adopted at the end of the year by the United Nation General Assembly and it will be open for signature from August 1^st, 2019 but it will come into force after the ratification of 3 members states (85 member states are involved in the discussion that has led to the UNCITRAL II final draft approval).

In conclusion, the draft of the Convention, considering to the growing role mediation is gaining within domestic legal systems, represents a suitable instrument to provide the same ADR mechanism the same dignity and relevance That arbitration already has at an international level.