ADB Partners with UNCITRAL, Korea Ministry of Justice, and ADBI to Promote Harmonization of ADR Across Asia and the Pacific
On 28 October 2025 in Seoul, South Korea, the ADR Special Session of the 11th annual Seoul ADR Festival gathered policymakers, legal professionals, and academics to explore ways of harmonizing alternative dispute resolution (ADR) mechanisms and practices across Asia and the Pacific.
The United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL)—together with the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Korea (MOJ), ADB, the ADB Institute, and the Korean Commercial Arbitration Board’s international division (KCAB International)—organized the special session. Anna Joubin-Bret, Secretary of UNCITRAL, opened the event by thanking the participants and the co-organizers and by welcoming ADB as a new partner. She introduced the theme: Implementation of UNCITRAL Dispute Settlement Instruments in Civil Law Jurisdictions.
Hong-Sik Chung, Deputy Minister of International Legal Affairs of the MOJ, followed Secretary Joubin-Bret and spoke of the difficulties faced by civil law jurisdictions in integrating arbitration frameworks. “For many civil jurisdictions, the process of integrating commercial arbitration and the modern law on international commercial mediation presents unique challenges, ranging from reconciling differences in procedural traditions to the legal infrastructure required for enforcement… This session provided us an excellent platform to explore how countries… are tackling these challenges, and adapting UNCITRAL instruments to suit their national context.”
ADB General Counsel Thomas Clark then emphasized the pivotal role of harmonized ADR mechanisms in encouraging sustainable development in ADB developing member countries: “The uniform and coherent application of UNCITRAL texts across jurisdictions is… essential to safeguard the legal certainty and to promote regional integration and fundamentally to ensure that international trade and investment continue to thrive despite all of these global uncertainties… This is why ADB has been actively supporting its developing member countries in strengthening their legal and institutional frameworks for alternative dispute resolution.”
Four panels featuring ADR experts and key government officials followed these opening remarks. The first panel examined regional developments in arbitration, and national efforts to align with UNCITRAL instruments. The second and third panels highlighted the different rates of progress among civil law and common law jurisdictions, respectively, in adopting and implementing the Singapore Convention on Mediation (2019) and other UNCITRAL instruments.
The fourth panel focused on approaches to harmonize interpretations of UNCITRAL texts. Byungsik Jung, Deputy Dean of ADBI, recommended applying tailored approaches to assisting civil and common-law systems, and spoke of the utility of digital innovations, such as Artificial intelligence and online dispute resolution platforms, in advancing ADR. Christina Pak—ADB Principal Counsel and team leader of ADB’s Law and Policy Reform Program—spoke of the importance of guidance documents: “One of the things that we’ve been doing is actually working with courts that have the relevant jurisdiction, also the Supreme Court, and coming up with a handbook that compiles cases. It’s made by the Supreme Court for their judges, so they can see how other judges have implemented arbitral proceedings. This kind of resource helps bridge the gap in civil law jurisdictions and makes UNCITRAL texts more accessible.”
A total of 200 participants from 58 jurisdictions, including students from the Korea University School of Law, attended the session, thereby gaining a more nuanced understanding of the complexities of international ADR frameworks, and the initiative of ADB and ADBI to cultivate a new generation of ADR practitioners. Participants were also introduced to ADB’s innovative solutions to address complex development challenges—for example, its Korea Climate Technology Hub in Seoul.