Singapore Convention Week: is there a Singapore Arbitration Week?

The short version

• There is no separate Singapore Arbitration Week. Singapore runs one combined event, Singapore Convention Week (SC Week), and its arbitration sessions sit inside it.
• SC Week is organised by Singapore’s Ministry of Law (MinLaw), with the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) and partner organisations.
• The 2026 edition ran 24 to 28 August 2026. The week has run since 2019.
• Arbitration is led by the SIAC Symposium, the flagship conference of the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC), held inside SC Week alongside mediation events and the UNCITRAL Academy.
• The week is built around the Singapore Convention on Mediation, the United Nations treaty on enforcing cross-border mediated settlements, which opened for signature in Singapore on 7 August 2019.^1,4,5,7

Is there a Singapore Arbitration Week?

No. There is no separate Singapore Arbitration Week. Singapore runs one combined Singapore Convention Week, and its arbitration events, led by the SIAC Symposium, sit inside it. The Singapore Chamber of Maritime Arbitration’s sessions and, in earlier years, the Inter-Pacific Bar Association’s Arbitration Day also sit within the week’s programme.^1,5

Searchers who type “singapore arbitration week” are almost always looking for SC Week. We note the phrase so the right event is easy to find, not because a rival event exists. This guide covers the event. The seat is the legal home of an arbitration, the country whose courts and law oversee it. For the law that governs an arbitration seated in Singapore, the two Acts, the SIAC Rules 2025, costs and enforcement, see arbitration in Singapore.¹

What is Singapore Convention Week?

Singapore Convention Week is Singapore’s flagship dispute-resolution event: a week of conferences, workshops and networking that gathers practitioners, institutions (bodies that administer cases under their own rules) and officials from arbitration and mediation. A flagship conference is the main event an organiser runs. The week’s scope is arbitration, mediation and dispute resolution.^1,6

The format is spread across the city rather than held in one hall. The Ministry of Law runs the anchor sessions and a networking event, and partner organisations hold their own events in conjunction with the week. The 2025 edition drew people from more than 100 countries, in person in Singapore and online: private practitioners, in-house and corporate counsel, arbitrators and mediators, business leaders, academics and government officials.^2,6

The 2026 edition carried the theme “Timeless Principles, Timely Solutions: Nurturing Trust in a Changing World” and marked two anniversaries: SGLaw200, 200 years of Singapore’s legal system since the Second Charter of Justice in 1826, and the 60th anniversary of UNCITRAL. For the other weeks on the circuit, see arbitration weeks around the world.^1,6

Who organises Singapore Convention Week?

Singapore Convention Week is organised by the Ministry of Law (MinLaw), in collaboration with UNCITRAL and partner organisations.¹

The recurring host and partner bodies are named as institutions, not individuals. They include SIAC, the Singapore International Dispute Resolution Academy (SIDRA), the Singapore International Mediation Centre (SIMC), the Singapore Chamber of Maritime Arbitration (SCMA) and Maxwell Chambers. In 2026, Maxwell Chambers hosted the Maxwell Lecture, which marked the opening of a Singapore office of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). UNCITRAL co-runs the anchor programme, the UNCITRAL Academy.^1,2,10,11

The UNCITRAL Academy anchors the week. In 2026 it ran as a Conference plus two capacity-building workshops in hybrid format, held in person at Shangri-La Singapore. The Conference, on 25 August 2026, examined trust and technology, including a session on artificial intelligence in mediation and cross-border disputes. The two workshops, on 25 and 27 August 2026, addressed industry use of AI tools and governments’ progress towards adopting the Singapore Convention.¹

When is Singapore Convention Week, and when did it start?

The 2026 edition ran 24 to 28 August 2026, and SC Week has run since its inaugural 2019 edition. The week anchors to late August in most years, and the official site publishes the full programme and schedule.^1,3,4,6

The first edition, from 2 to 8 August 2019, was held with the signing ceremony of the Singapore Convention on Mediation on 7 August 2019. The 2021 edition ran from 6 to 10 September 2021 and introduced the inaugural UNCITRAL Academy, held on 7 to 8 September 2021. The recent editions have clustered in late August: 28 August to 1 September 2023, 26 to 30 August 2024, 25 to 29 August 2025 and 24 to 28 August 2026. As of 10 November 2026 the 2027 edition has no confirmed dates; the official site invites visitors to register interest.^1,2,3,4,6,8

What arbitration happens during SC Week?

Arbitration runs inside SC Week as a strong strand of its own, led by the SIAC Symposium, SIAC’s flagship conference. The 2026 Symposium covered cross-border disputes involving China, India and the United States, energy transition and infrastructure disputes in Southeast Asia, business risks from supply-chain disruption, and the effect of legal technology on arbitration. The Singapore Chamber of Maritime Arbitration ran a session on maritime and energy disputes. The Inter-Pacific Bar Association has been an SC Week partner, with its Arbitration Day among the 2023 partner events.^1,5

Mediation runs alongside arbitration rather than apart from it. SIMC held a 2026 session on mediation amid disruptive technologies and geopolitics, and the UNCITRAL Academy’s industry workshop looked at how AI tools can support mediators managing complex, multi-party and cross-border disputes. The two strands share one programme, which is what sets SC Week apart from a week built for arbitration alone.¹

SIDRA launched its dispute-resolution survey during the week, a source of empirical data on what users of arbitration and mediation prefer. AI ran through the 2026 programme; what institutions and courts say about it is in our guides to AI in arbitration and AI in dispute resolution. This guide covers the event; the law of the Singapore seat is in our guide to arbitration in Singapore.^1,10

What is the Singapore Convention on Mediation?

The Singapore Convention on Mediation is the United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation (New York, 2018), a treaty for invoking and enforcing cross-border mediated settlements. It was adopted by consensus at the United Nations General Assembly on 20 December 2018, opened for signature in Singapore on 7 August 2019, and entered into force on 12 September 2020.^4,7,9

It is the first United Nations treaty named after Singapore, and it is the treaty the week is named for and built around. As of 10 November 2026 the Convention had 25 parties (contracting states) on the UNCITRAL status page. At the 2026 edition the Ministry of Law reported 60 signatories, including China, India and the United States, and more than 20 contracting parties, nine of which joined in the year before that edition.^1,4,9

How is SC Week different from a city arbitration week?

Singapore runs a single combined convention week that puts mediation and arbitration on one programme, rather than the arbitration-dedicated weeks that London, Paris, New York, Dubai and Hong Kong each run; for those side by side, see arbitration weeks around the world. The week takes its name and shape from the Singapore Convention on Mediation, so mediation and arbitration are planned together rather than in separate weeks.¹

That is the Singapore-side fact; the detail of the other weeks belongs to each of their own guides. The nearest comparator by timing is Hong Kong Arbitration Week, and the circuit also includes Paris Arbitration Week.¹

What does Singapore Convention Week tell us about where arbitration is heading?

In our view, Singapore Convention Week approaches the future of cross-border dispute resolution from an unusual position. It is one combined convention week that puts mediation and arbitration on a single programme, rather than giving arbitration a week of its own. That choice follows from what the week is named for. It is built around the Singapore Convention on Mediation, a treaty about enforcing settlements across borders, and the SIAC Symposium sits inside that frame. The themes the programme keeps returning to are the ones the whole circuit raises: cost, delay, access, the competition between seats, and, since the 2024 edition took up generative AI in dispute resolution, the use of AI. The week has grown since 2019, from an in-person inaugural edition built around the Convention’s signing to the 2025 edition’s more than 5,600 attendances from over 100 countries and more than 70 partner events at the 2026 edition. Read against the other weeks, Singapore’s wager is that the field wants its arbitration and its mediation handled on one programme, with a clear record and enforcement kept in view.^1,3,4,7