The International Organisation for Mediation (IOMed): Remaking or Breaking the Rules of International Dispute Settlement?
This article was written by Aarif Abraham on Substack - subscribe here.
In October 2025, the International Organisation for Mediation (IOMed), headquartered in Hong Kong, was inaugurated, marking a new addition to the global dispute-resolution architecture, if not a deliberate departure from conventional dispute-resolution mechanisms.
Whilst ostensibly technical and procedural, the new inter-governmental organisation is also partly an instrument of geopolitical positioning: Beijing, which conceived of the initiative, has framed IOMed as a corrective to what it perceives, as do others from the Global South, as uneven representation and procedural bias within existing international legal fora.
There were 33 founding signatory states – primarily from Asia, Africa, and Latin America – a further 52 countries attended the signing ceremony in May 2025 as did 20 international bodies, indicating significant international interest. (At the time of writing there were 38 Signatory States of which 9 were Contracting States.)
Whether IOMed will emerge as a credible, complementary, and independent forum for resolving interstate, investment and commercial disputes — or as a vehicle for strategic influence — will turn on its design choices, institutional incentives and the outcomes of early, high-profile proceedings. There is much as stake in an increasingly multi-polar, and plural, world order.
Design Choices
IOMed’s mandate is narrowly constructed but strategically selective. The Convention that established IOMed, which came into force on 29 August 2025, characterises mediation as a voluntary, legal and non-binding process to resolve primarily cross-border economic disputes between states and/or commercial actors with the assistance of an impartial mediator.
IOMed’s structure includes a governing council, a secretariat and panels of state party-appointed mediators. The Convention sees IOMed as a “useful complement” to existing international dispute-resolution mechanisms rather than a replacement. In practice, it may present as a formal, structured alternative to litigation and arbitration particularly before the traditional fora such as the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), among others.
Three categories are expressly within scope: interstate disputes, international investment disputes and international commercial disputes. Whilst not formally excluded, resolution of intra-state armed conflicts, non-international armed conflicts, and national insurgencies, as noted by Brookings, are not considered within scope. More broadly, questions of sovereignty, internal affairs of state, and the “responsibility to protect” domestic populations from fundamental violations of human rights, are considered out of bounds and politically fraught.
‘Sovereignty Plus’ International Adjudication
Beijing has indicated a longstanding reluctance to accept external adjudication of sensitive domestic matters and underscores IOMed’s immediate practical focus: transnational disputes with cross-border economic and political implications. In fact, IOMed’s inauguration may come at a time of convergence - ‘sovereignty’ issues are particularly sensitive for three of the five permanent UN Security Council members given their recent history [of unlawful conduct in armed conflicts and state-led commission of alleged atrocity crimes] and their current ambivalence to the international rule of law. As such, the ideas underpinning IOMed - “reconciliation”, “harmony”, “a people-centred approach”, and “a community with a shared future for humanity” - may leave much to be desired.
The organisation’s origins though are instructive. The dispute over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) along the Blue Nile — involving Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt — provided the catalytic moment. GERD’s water reservoir build up in 2020 had a direct impact on the downstream water available to Sudan and Egypt, which led to a major dispute. China’s role as financier, builder and power-system operator tied it into the technical and diplomatic anatomy of the dispute. Chinese indirect mediation initiatives around GERD, beginning in 2021 and supported by the African Union, as well as quiet support for other initiatives and championing mediation generally, crystallised into a broader institutional idea: a multilateral mediation hub offering an ostensibly accessible alternative to arbitration and litigation.
The October 2022 announcement on the establishment of IOMed and the subsequent founding Convention reflect both a practical response to transboundary commercial/investment friction and a strategic push to shape dispute resolution on terms seen as more attractive to developing States.
Institutional Incentives
As set out in the Convention, technically, IOMed situates mediation alongside arbitration and litigation, not as their replacement. The difference is fundamental: mediation is consensual and non-binding, while arbitration imposes a binding outcome. That distinction confers both advantages and constraints. Mediation can be faster, less expensive, and more adaptable to cultural and political particularities; it enables creative, non-zero-sum settlements that preserve longer-term relationships; as the IOMed itself states “win-win cooperation between parties”. Yet because it relies on consent and voluntary compliance, mediation requires credible leverage or inducements for parties to engage in good faith and implement outcomes. This is more so because all proceedings at IOMed are confidential.
Several existing fora such as the PCA and ICSID do offer mediation and, separately, conciliation services but they remain a very small part of their caseload. Several recently negotiated BITs also encourage mediation, but the numbers before both ICSID and the PCA are still relatively small even if those modalities are increasingly seen as attractive. Cases do not rise above 10-20 in any given year although definitive statistics are not readily available. Would IOMed have greater traction?
Absent enforceable awards, the success of IOMed will depend on the political will of powerful states, institutional reputational capital, and linkages with enforceable mechanisms - whether domestic adoption of settlement agreements, contractual clauses, or hybrid pathways that couple mediation with subsequent arbitration or court recognition.
Beijing’s public rationale for developing IOMed emphasises a fairness deficit in global dispute-resolution architecture: a lack of proportional Global South voice in adjudicative fora and arbitration systems perceived as dominated by adversarial Western legal traditions.
For many developing countries, the idea of a mediation-focused institution — one that privileges negotiated resolutions and accommodates plural legal traditions — is prima facie attractive. It promises procedural flexibility, bilingual or multilingual processes, and sensitivity to sovereignty concerns. For China, the calculus is twofold: build an institutional vehicle that supports the Belt and Road’s expanding web of commercial ties, and enhance Hong Kong’s role as a dispute-resolution hub that sits between the common-law and civil-law worlds; critics would say not without some irony given the gradual erosion of the rule of law there, which has hampered its economic and judicial development as well as international cooperation.
Credible and Fair Proceedings
China’s aspirations for IOMed confront several practical tests.
First, credibility: mediation outcomes are only useful if they are perceived as fair and impartial. Scepticism will be acute given China’s high-profile rejection of the 2016 South China Sea award by the PCA, and its fierce contention that it had not consented to the proceedings despite ratifying the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) which gave the PCA jurisdiction. IOMed needs early, demonstrable successes that are transparently and fairly administered and accepted by a broad constituency. This is essential to counter perceptions, and the possibility, of undue influence or bias in a voluntary process where there is clear asymmetry of power and pre-existing interests or preferences.
Second, enforceability: mediation’s voluntary outcomes require either robust follow-through by domestic institutions or complementary enforcement mechanisms. IOMed can help by designing model clauses, encouraging domestic legal recognition of mediated settlements, and offering follow-up monitoring — but these measures take time to embed in national practice.
Third, capacity and standards: mediation at scale requires professionalised training, accreditation, and data-driven evaluation to avoid fragmentation and poor-quality processes. IOMed’s credibility hinges on demonstrable standards, transparent ethics, and independent dispute-auditing.
IOMed’s comparative niche — commercial, investment and interstate mediation — also places it amid plethora existing institutions (arbitral centres, the ICJ, UNCITRAL frameworks, and ad hoc mediation initiatives). Notably, the framework and rules that IOMed has laid out to date are not remarkably dissimilar to frameworks of existing institutions. Success will, therefore, depend on interoperability rather than exclusivity: offering model rules that plug into contractual architecture, tele-mediation platforms with secure identity and document management, and accreditation systems that are recognised across jurisdictions.
Moreover, tailoring dispute-resolution modalities to the nature of the dispute - commercial DAABs (dispute avoidance and adjudication boards), hybrid ADR pathways, or full mediation - will remain essential. Serious practitioners and policy-makers repeatedly stress that no single modality is universally optimal; the match between process and dispute is the key determinant of durable resolution.
Conclusion
The geopolitical dimension of IOMed cannot be ignored. An institution sponsored and operationalised by China inside a special administrative region sends both a legal-technical signal and a strategic one. For States that see value in diversifying their dispute-resolution portfolio, IOMed could be a pragmatic addition.
For sceptical observers, the worry is that a potentially politically aligned mediation forum could be used selectively to shield preferred interests, sometimes with parties paradoxically being compelled to mediation which would cut against avowed adherence by IOMed to Article 33 of the UN Charter promoting the pacific settlement of disputes.
Over time, transparency, plural leadership and rigorous standards will determine whether IOMed becomes a genuinely multilateral tool - supported by all the ratifying states - for dispute management or a contested node in a pluralising (if not polarising) international legal order.
Mediation brings real advantages — flexibility, cultural adaptability, and relational preservation — but its non-binding nature is the defining constraint. For IOMed to matter, it needs not only process design but leverage: powerful institutional backers, legal bridges to enforceability, and demonstrable impartiality. If those elements coalesce, IOMed may expand the repertoire of peaceful dispute management in an increasingly contested global landscape. If they do not, it risks being another well-resourced institutional experiment that struggles for buy-in when it matters most.
