The AALCO family, and the AALCO Disputes Settlement System, have been strengthened with a new “family member” with the establishment of AALCO Hong Kong Regional Arbitration Centre, the sixth AALCO disputes resolution centre, on the 10th of November 2021 on the basis of international public law pursuant to an agreement between the Asian-African Legal Consultative Organization (“AALCO”) and the host country the People’s Republic of China (“China”). As many business leaders, foreign affairs diplomats and legal experts will know, AALCO is a leading inter governmental international organization established in 1956 with a seat at the United Nations and now with 47 member states compromising of most of the countries in Asia and Africa, speaking for the common interest of two-thirds of the world’s population with a multi-trillion dollars market full of opportunities.
Host country China is an active and contributing member state of AALCO and have provided a modern and centrally-located office space in the heart of the central business district in Hong Kong featuring nice conference rooms and video-conferencing facilities and officially opened on the 25th of May 2022 in the warm presence of Commissioner Liu of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (“Hong Kong”) (who has previously served in the Department of African Affairs and represented China on diplomatic posts in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya and the USA), the Secretary for Justice of Hong Kong, consul generals and heads of chambers of commerce from many AALCO member states, representatives from other international organizations, President of The Law Society of Hong Kong, Chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association and other heads of disputes resolution centres, local and international law-related organizations and some dispute resolution experts.
AALCO Hong Kong Regional Arbitration Centre has been actively promoting our model arbitration clause available at https://aalcohkrac.org/model-arbitration-clause/, and disputes resolution and capacity building of more disputes resolution professionals have already been conducted at the centre. Our state-of-the-art Online Disputes Resolution platform and Artificial Intelligence powered translation are operational and publicly available at www.AALCOHKRAC.org
Hong Kong is already well-known as one of the world’s most popular seat for international arbitration, and AALCO’s great decision to set up AALCO Hong Kong Regional Arbitration Centre in Hong Kong, China, elevates this further and will become a greater contributor in preventing and resolving disputes and hence fostering trades and strong ties between people and businesses in Africa and Asia. As a Special Administrative Region with long-established and well-regarded common law legal system situated in and being part of China which has a civil law legal system in the Mainland in a country with 1.4 billion people vast market of opportunities jurisdiction China which has the world’s second largest economy by GDP, Hong Kong operates under “One Country, Two Systems” with a high degree of autonomy and enjoys a high reputation for its sound legal framework for disputes resolution. Hong Kong also has strong breadth and depth of legal and disputes resolution talents with over 15,000 lawyers who are qualified in common law legal systems, civil law legal systems and other legal systems, with around 1,000 law firms and many professional arbitrators and mediators who have interdisciplinary knowledge in other industries to help parties fairly and quickly resolve disputes. China’s national plan recognizes and provides full support to strengthen Hong Kong as a legal services and disputes resolution centre. Hong Kong is at the heart of the Greater Bay Area (“GBA”) development, an important gateway of the Belt and Road In
|