Hong Kong hits a high with global legal body, but now comes the hard part

Hong Kong made a groundbreaking move on Friday when it became the headquarters for a new intergovernmental mediation body but the unit’s real tests will be in the types of substantive cases it handles and whether more countries will join the convention, experts have said.

While the China-led International Organisation for Mediation launched on Friday with 33 signatories, and the conspicuous absence of major Western countries, leading lawyers said they expected more nations would join once the body’s work was promoted.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was front and centre at a high-level ceremony for countries to formally sign as founding members of the organisation.

Many of them are part of the Belt and Road Initiative, a push by Beijing to link economies into a China-centred trade and development network.

The bulk of them are African states, such as Algeria, Ethiopia and Cameroon, alongside five Asian nations, including Pakistan, Laos and Indonesia, five from Latin America and the Caribbean, five from Oceania and two from Europe. All are generally considered to be developing countries.

Asked about the participating countries, former justice minister Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah stressed that each one was an equal entity that should not be judged as “big or small”.