Participants of the signing ceremony of the establishment of the International Organisation for Mediation in Hong Kong, China, on 30 May (CNS)

In a world fraying under geopolitical tensions, legal asymmetry, and fragmented global governance, the launch of the International Organisation for Mediation (IOMed) in China’s Hong Kong on 30 May is much more than a diplomatic novelty. It is a strategic recalibration of how the Global South, particularly African nations, might resolve disputes without surrendering sovereignty or dignity. 

This new institution, formed by 33 nations and jointly proposed by China and 18 others in 2022, offers an answer to an old problem: the structural biases of the post-WWII global legal architecture. African nations have long contended with a legal terrain shaped by former colonial powers, from the World Bank arbitration panels to the now-paralysed World Trade Organisation (WTO) dispute body. The IOMed breaks that mould, ushering in a new era of empowerment for African countries and giving them a stronger voice in the global legal discourse. 

Inclusive and voluntary 

The IOMed does not seek to replace traditional courts. Instead, it offers an inclusive and voluntary alternative rooted in mediation, dialogue, and mutual respect. In this sense, it starkly contrasts with enforcement-driven mechanisms like the International Criminal Court (ICC), reassuring African states of respect for their sovereignty and dignity. 

Legal scholars such as Judge Dire Tladi, now at the ICC, have long highlighted the tension between African sovereignty and international legal institutions, cautioning against the overreach of global courts into domestic affairs. 

Similarly, Advocate Max du Plessis SC has critiqued the ICC for its disproportionate focus on African leaders, arguing that such practices erode the principles of voluntary consent and cultural specificity in international law. 

By contrast, IOMed institutionalises sovereign agency, peer-level negotiation, and context-sensitive mediation, as outlined in its founding convention. African states can resolve disputes without external coercion, preserving political dignity and prioritising long-term peace over short-term punitive rulings. This new institution is both a legal innovation and a corrective response to decades of imbalance in international dispute resolution. 

The principles of voluntary consent, regard for sovereignty and cultural specificity are not just mere words mentioned in the convention’s preamble; they represent a sharp departure from the judicial overreach often seen in institutions like the ICC, where African leaders have frequently felt targeted. 

Instead of rulings imposed from the Hague or Geneva, the IOMed will enable African states to engage in peer-level mediation, preserving face, fostering long-term peace, and sidestepping punitive measures that often exacerbate crises. 

Significance for Africa 

Africa has, too, often been on the receiving end in international dispute resolution. The World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) has consistently ruled in favour of multinational powers over the public interests of African states. According to data from the Columbia Centre on Sustainable Investment, nearly 70 percent of ICSID rulings involving African nations favoured investors, often resulting in payouts that strained national budgets and undermined public policy. 

The IOMed flips the script. Emphasising non-interference, mutual respect, and capacity-building, it provides an infrastructure where African states are not mere defendants in a Western-designed courtroom, but co-creators of legal norms in a multipolar era. The convention’s Articles 5 and 42 mandate capacity-building and regional hubs, giving African legal institutions the training, tools, and status to mediate intra-African and transcontinental disputes. 

One of the most promising aspects of IOMed lies in its Pan-African opportunity to shape global jurisprudence. According to the convention’s Article 20, each member state may designate mediators to regional panels. This radical gesture towards legal pluralism ensures that dispute resolution is not filtered solely through Anglo-American or Francophone lenses, but reflects customary, indigenous, and civil law traditions. 

For countries like Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, and South Africa, all with robust legal cultures, this offers a platform to export African legal thought and to influence transnational jurisprudence in commerce, diplomacy, and resource governance. This opportunity should make African states proud and optimistic about IOMed’s potential. 

Africa is not short of disputes, whether transboundary infrastructure disagreements (like Ethiopia-Egypt over the Nile), mineral extraction conflicts (such as in the Democratic Republic of the Congo), or tensions in trade corridors (Kenya vs. Somalia or ECOWAS mediation efforts). However, the continent has lacked a neutral, globally recognised venue for resolving them outside the political entanglements of existing bodies. 

With IOMed, there is now a real prospect for African-originated disputes to be resolved in a fair way, where the mediators understand postcolonial dynamics, where the language of justice includes Ubuntu, and where dignity is not traded for peace. 

Challenges ahead 

Article 41 of the IOMed Convention outlines a future protocol for enforcing mediated agreements, particularly those arising from international commercial disputes. This envisioned protocol is ambitious, like the Singapore Convention on Mediation: It seeks to grant legal recognition and enforceability to mediated settlements across its contracting states. 

However, unlike the Singapore Convention on Mediation, which is already legally operational and binding, the IOMed enforcement mechanism is under negotiation. 

For African states, this presents an opportunity. By participating early in IOMed’s governance and legal development, they can help to shape this protocol to reflect the continent’s legal realities, ensuring that mediation enforcement does not repeat the rigidities or biases of ICSID or WTO tribunals. 

If African states join early, contribute mediators, host regional offices, and use the Mediation Fund (Article 44) and the Mediation Fellowship Programme (Article 42), the benefits could be immense - not just in resolving disputes but also in building African legal infrastructure that is respected and recognised on the global stage. 

The IOMed is not just a new institution. It is a legal experiment in fairness, a post-Westphalian, post-Bretton Woods experiment, that allows African nations to solve their disputes with their mediators, under rules they help to write.  

The author is President of TV BRICS Africa