The President has signed the law on Uzbekistan’s accession to the UN Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation — the instrument known worldwide as the Singapore Convention on Mediation. For companies working with foreign partners this means a new layer of protection: a settlement agreement reached through mediation will now be enforceable abroad almost as easily as an arbitral award.
Legal basis
The Legislative Chamber of the Oliy Majlis passed Law of the Republic of Uzbekistan No. ZRU-1167 of 14 August 2026 in three readings on 4 August, the Senate approved it on 8 August, and on 14 August it was signed by President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. From that date the law is effective domestically.
The Convention itself, however, will not take effect for Uzbekistan immediately. On 28 August 2026 the instrument of accession was deposited with the UN Secretary-General, the Convention’s depositary. Under its terms, for a state acceding after the Convention has already entered into force (which happened back in September 2020, following ratification by Singapore, Fiji and Qatar), the clock runs from the date of deposit plus six months. The UN has officially confirmed the date: the Convention becomes binding on Uzbekistan on 28 February 2027.
With Uzbekistan’s accession the Convention now counts 66 participating states, including Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, Ukraine, China, India, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom.
Who is affected
First of all, companies with cross-border contracts: exporters and importers whose agreements contain a mediation clause, or who see mediation as a way to settle a dispute with a foreign counterparty without going to court. Second, foreign investors, for whom the existence of such a mechanism is one more argument for the predictability of Uzbekistan’s legal environment. It also directly concerns mediators and mediation centres, whose work on international commercial disputes now carries real legal weight, and the courts, which will act as the competent authorities considering such applications.
Only one category of relationships falls outside the Convention — disputes to which the state itself, a state body or a person acting on its behalf is a party. There Uzbekistan has kept the existing rules.
Why this instrument matters
The problem the Convention solves is familiar to anyone who has negotiated with a foreign partner through a mediator. The parties find a compromise and sign a settlement agreement — and it remains an ordinary civil-law contract. If the counterparty does not perform, enforcement has to be pursued from scratch: through a court or arbitration, in a foreign jurisdiction. The savings of time and money for which the parties chose mediation end right there.
The Convention gives the settlement agreement a different status. A party may apply directly to a court of any of the 66 participating states to enforce the agreement, or invoke it as a defence against a claim that has already been settled — without a re-examination of the dispute on the merits. A court may refuse only on a narrow list of grounds: a party’s incapacity, nullity of the agreement, a serious breach by the mediator of applicable standards, and a few similar cases. In effect, the Convention closes for mediation the same gap that the 1958 New York Convention long ago closed for arbitration.
What changes in practice
Uzbekistan has had a Law “On Mediation” for almost eight years — it was adopted in July 2018 and governs the procedure domestically. Notably, its Article 2 provided from the outset that where an international treaty of Uzbekistan establishes different rules, the treaty prevails. The legislator left room for exactly this scenario in advance.
But the domestic law did not answer the key question — what to do when a partner abroad fails to honour the agreement reached. Until now the only route was a fresh claim or arbitration in another jurisdiction. From 28 February 2027 there is an alternative: an agreement with a clause invoking the Convention can be taken directly to a court of a participating state and enforced without relitigating the merits of the dispute.
Two reservations to keep in mind
On accession, Uzbekistan made two reservations — both expressly provided for in the text of the Convention itself and confirmed in the UN depositary notification.
First: the Convention does not apply to agreements to which Uzbekistan itself, a government agency or any person acting on its behalf is a party. The state has placed itself outside this mechanism.
Second: the Convention applies only where the parties to the settlement agreement have themselves expressly agreed to its application. It does not apply to any agreement automatically, by default — a clause invoking the Convention has to be written into the document itself.