IOMed fills institutional gap in international mediation: secretary-general

The International Organization for Mediation (IOMed), the world's first intergovernmental legal organization dedicated to resolving international disputes through mediation, fills an institutional gap in international mediation, the body's Secretary-General Teresa Cheng said.

In a recent interview with the China Global Television Network (CGTN) in Beijing, Cheng talked about the significance of IMOed's inauguration in October 2025.

"If we look at the United Nations Charter again, Article 33, we've provided for these forms of dispute resolution. Yet for 80 years, somehow there is not a body that is dedicated exclusively to mediation. And I think that triggered these 19 countries when they made their joint statement to say, let's establish such a body, so it is filling the institutional gap. The second thing is that it also complements the existing dispute resolution mechanisms. Litigation arbitration is at the moment still a prevailing form of dispute resolution, but the states see the need, also called upon by the UN Charter, to establish something exclusively for mediation to complement the existing systems," said Cheng. "There are a number of states, in particular those from the Global South, are very interested in having a say in the development of this new body. Therefore, through this organization, there are, as I said, 38 signatory states now. I think the world is in a very interesting stage at the moment. There are a lot of differences, sometimes views get entrenched. By having a body that brings into effect inclusivity multilateralism, and of course, accommodating and understanding each other through dialogue, is a very important feature." she said.

Housing the organization in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region(HKSAR) also showed China's willingness to contribute to international mediation, said Cheng.

"The fact that we are housed and placed in the Hong Kong SAR, part of China, is because China is willing to contribute to this development, and Hong Kong very generously allows us to put our headquarters in one of the heritage buildings in Hong Kong," she added.

IOMed fills institutional gap in international mediation: secretary-general

The three astronauts aboard China's Shenzhou-23 spaceship have entered the country's Tiangong space station and met with their astronaut colleagues early Monday morning, as they now begin an in-orbit crew handover.

Mission commander Zhu Yangzhu and fellow astronauts Zhang Zhiyuan and Lai Ka-ying successfully entered the station's core module Tianhe after the spaceship made a fast automated rendezvous and docked with the Tianhe module at 02:45 (Beijing Time) on Monday.

The three Shenzhou-21 crew members opened the hatch at 05:13 (Beijing Time) and greeted the new arrivals, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).

The six astronauts then took group pictures for the eighth in-orbit get-together in China's aerospace history.

Notably, one of the Shenzhou-23 crew members is set to undertake a year-long stay aboard the space station, double the usual duration of previous Shenzhou missions.

The Shenzhou-23 spaceship, atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket, blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China at 23:08 (Beijing Time) on Sunday.

Shenzhou-23 marks the 40th flight of China's manned spaceflight program and the seventh manned flight mission since the Tiangong space station entered its application and development phase in late 2022.

Shenzhou-23 astronauts enter Tiangong space station, meet Shenzhou-21 crew