Safeguarding the stability of industrial and supply chains is not only a fundamental condition for steady and sustained economic development, but also a key strategic support for achieving high-quality development. General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized that “we must jointly maintain the stability of global industrial and supply chains, as this is an important guarantee for the healthy development of the world economy.” As a frontier window for China’s high-level opening-up to the outside world, the Hainan Free Trade Port is becoming a new engine driving economic globalization, a new nexus for international cooperation, and a new frontier for China’s high-level opening-up. The industrial and supply chains of the Free Trade Port are deeply embedded in the global market system, placing higher requirements on professional and efficient international commercial dispute resolution services. As the only civil and commercial arbitration institution in Hainan Province established by the government, the Hainan International Arbitration Court (HIAC) has always grounded itself in the overall national strategy of opening up and the strategic framework of the Free Trade Port’s customs closure operation. With the enhancement of dispute resolution mechanisms as its core mission and anchoring its development in internationalization and specialization, HIAC has gradually built an international commercial dispute resolution system that aligns with the industrial characteristics of the Free Trade Port and conforms to internationally accepted rules, providing solid and robust rule-of-law guarantees for the high-quality international development of the Hainan Free Trade Port and the security and stability of regional industrial and supply chains.
I. Focusing on International and Professional Innovative Development, Enhancing the Effectiveness of International Commercial Dispute Resolution in the Free Trade Port through High-Quality Arbitration Reform
First, shaping core competitiveness through the system of internationalized arbitration rules. HIAC has thoroughly implemented the Free Trade Port’s high-level opening-up strategy by formulating its Arbitration Rules aligned with international standards. Combined with the needs of key industries in the Free Trade Port such as cross-border investment, international shipping, and offshore trade, HIAC has optimized procedural designs for interim measures, emergency arbitrators, and consolidated arbitration, achieving seamless integration between arbitration rules and high-standard international economic and trade rules. To match the needs of resolving international commercial disputes in the Free Trade Port and align with its key development areas, HIAC issued the Rules for Assisting Ad Hoc Arbitration in 2023 and China’s first Seed Industry Arbitration Rules in 2025. HIAC has gradually formed an arbitration rules system with characteristics tailored to the Free Trade Port’s development while aligning with internationally accepted rules, thereby building a solid legal bridge connecting the Free Trade Port with global economic and trade rules.
Second, strengthening the foundation of services through a professional arbitrator team. Focusing on key industries in the Free Trade Port, HIAC has continuously recruited 1,238 arbitrators with professional backgrounds in cross-border investment, international shipping, offshore finance, seed industry innovation, and other fields—nearly one-third of whom are from overseas—covering 43 countries and regions worldwide. This has resulted in an expert arbitrator pool spanning multiple jurisdictions, languages, and industries. At the same time, HIAC has refined its arbitrator management and evaluation mechanisms, establishing systems for case quality review, performance oversight, and dynamic selection and removal, safeguarding case adjudication quality and the credibility of awards at the source, and providing fair, impartial, and predictable dispute resolution services to cross-border entities throughout the upstream and downstream of industrial chains.
Third, enhancing arbitration service effectiveness through institutional innovation. HIAC has established a modern governance mechanism led by its Council that is highly aligned with internationally accepted rules, operating under a market-oriented model of financial independence and self-financing. The Council, as the decision-making body, is composed of authoritative legal experts and leading industry elites from both within and outside China, with overseas council members accounting for more than one-third of the total—forming an open, inclusive, professional, and efficient international governance structure. This top-level governance design ensures that arbitration rules, procedural standards, and award-making philosophies are fully aligned with internationally accepted practices, effectively eliminating institutional concerns among overseas investors and multinational enterprises regarding applicable law and dispute resolution, stabilizing market expectations and enhancing confidence in cooperation.
II. Precisely Empowering Industries, Safeguarding the Stability of the Free Trade Port’s Industrial and Supply Chains through High-Level Arbitration Services
The stable development of industrial and supply chains in the Hainan Free Trade Port hinges fundamentally on the sound operation of characteristic industrial clusters and the unimpeded flow of cross-border economic and trade cooperation. HIAC has consistently adhered to an industry-service orientation, grounding itself in the layout of key industries in the Free Trade Port, precisely addressing the legal needs of industries such as international shipping and seed industry intellectual property protection, precisely preventing operational risks in industrial and supply chains, and building a solid industrial security shield through professional arbitration services.
First, safeguarding the robust development of the Free Trade Port’s international shipping supply chain. Port clusters such as Yangpu and Haikou in Hainan serve as important shipping hubs for China facing the Pacific and Indian Oceans, with the shipping and logistics supply chain serving as an important pillar of the Free Trade Port’s opening-up. HIAC has deeply cultivated expertise in resolving maritime and commercial shipping disputes, providing full chain arbitration services for the shipping supply chain. HIAC has deeply participated in the construction of the Hainan Free Trade Port Shipping Dispute Multi-Resolution Center and the Eastern Hainan “One-Stop” Maritime Dispute Resolution Center, integrating resources from judicial adjudication, industry regulation, commercial arbitration, and industry mediation to build an integrated shipping dispute resolution platform, lawfully and properly resolving various complex maritime and commercial disputes involving ship financing, port operations, ocean freight forwarding, cruise ships and yachts, and more. HIAC has also facilitated the implementation of China Yangpu Port’s first ship mortgage registration business embedding an arbitration clause, deeply integrating the arbitration mechanism into the entire shipping finance registration process. Additionally, HIAC has signed multi-dispute resolution cooperation agreements with the Haikou Maritime Court, strengthening the effective linkage mechanism between arbitration and litigation, forming a complete closed-loop system for diversified shipping dispute resolution. Through this series of comprehensive measures, HIAC has efficiently resolved conflicts and disputes in the cross-border shipping sector, safeguarding the security and smoothness of international shipping and logistics channels, empowering the construction of Hainan’s international shipping hub, and consolidating the region’s core strategic position in the shipping supply chain.
Second, empowering innovative development of the tropical high-efficiency specialty agriculture industrial chain. As China’s national Nanfan (winter breeding) scientific research and breeding base and “Nanfan Silicon Valley,” Hainan serves as a core strategic resource for China’s seed industry innovation and development, with seed industry intellectual property protection serving as a critical guarantee for upgrading the Free Trade Port’s tropical characteristic efficient agriculture industrial chain. Focusing on seed industry dispute resolution, HIAC has issued China’s first specialized arbitration rules for seed industry dispute resolution, simultaneously establishing a roster of seed industry arbitrators and building a specialized adjudication system for seed industry disputes. HIAC has established the Yazhou Bay Seed Industry International Arbitration Center, deepening collaborative linkages with the China Seed Association and the Sanya Intellectual Property Protection Center, opening up a one-stop resolution channel for disputes spanning the entire chain of seed industry research and development, breeding, trading, and transformation. HIAC has continuously conducted specialized training on seed industry topics, deeply engaging with leading seed industry enterprises, key research laboratories, and Nanfan industrial parks, regularly explaining the unique advantages of the seed industry arbitration system, and guiding market entities to proactively embed arbitration clauses. HIAC has also participated in local seed industry intellectual property policy discussions, improving the legal support system for seed industry innovation at its institutional source. Relying on a comprehensive package of professional and systematic legal service measures, HIAC has built an all-around intellectual property protection shield for Nanfan Silicon Valley, safeguarding the strengthening, stabilizing, and extending of the tropical characteristic efficient agriculture chain, and serving the implementation of the national seed industry revitalization strategy.
Third, weaving a dense arbitration service protection network for key industrial sectors. Centered on the Free Trade Port’s strategic positioning as “Three Zones and One Center,” and focusing on the Free Trade Port’s leading and characteristic industrial chains, HIAC has established more than 20 specialized working platforms across the province, covering key areas such as sports and cultural tourism, tropical efficient agriculture, shipping and logistics, finance, intellectual property, and healthcare and wellness—forming an arbitration service network layout of “one institution, multiple points, professional coordination.” Each platform precisely addresses the demand of industry, providing customized legal consultation on arbitration, guidance on risk prevention, and rapid dispute response services, extending industrial chain dispute resolution from “post-hoc remedy” to “pre-emptive prevention,” and providing full-cycle, full-chain arbitration legal guarantees for the high-quality development of key industries in the Free Trade Port. This approach achieves the goal of “resolving one case, governing one chain,” effectively transforming the institutional advantages of arbitration into security guarantees for industrial development, and continuously enhancing the resilience of various characteristic industrial and supply chains in the Free Trade Port.
III. Deepening Quality Enhancement and Upgrading, Striving to Build a Preferred Destination for International Commercial Dispute Resolution
First, continuously deepening institutional and rule innovation to solidify the foundation for enhanced effectiveness. Closely aligned with the implementation requirements of the new Arbitration Law and the legal needs of the Free Trade Port’s customs closure operation, HIAC will comprehensively optimize and refine its system of arbitration rules, refining core rules such as the linkage between “mediation and arbitration,” assistance with ad hoc arbitration, and the seat of arbitration, continuously amplifying the innovative advantages of the Free Trade Port’s arbitration system. Focusing on specialized fields such as maritime and commercial shipping and intellectual property, HIAC will formulate specialized arbitration rules to enhance the quality and efficiency of dispute resolution in professional domains. HIAC will also deepen digital reform in arbitration, empowering full-process case management through smart arbitration, enhancing the intelligence and efficiency of dispute resolution, and continuously reducing dispute resolution costs for market entities.
Second, refining the diversified and coordinated dispute resolution system to build a solid industrial security shield. HIAC will continue to deepen the construction of a coordinated litigation-arbitration-mediation mechanism, promoting organic linkage and efficient coordination among litigation, arbitration, and mediation, refining tiered and diverted dispute resolution mechanisms for rapid resolution, and building an all-around, multi-tiered, one-stop service system for international commercial dispute resolution. HIAC will deeply cultivate dispute resolution services for key industries, continuously optimizing arbitration service systems for characteristic industries such as shipping, seed industry, healthcare, and finance, precisely matching the full-chain legal needs of industrial and supply chains, and achieving integrated services for dispute resolution, risk prevention and control, and compliance guidance.
Third, strengthening international exchange and cooperation to enhance global rule-of-law discourse power. HIAC will continue to expand its international arbitration exchange footprint, refine its cross-border legal service network, deepen cooperation and coordination with arbitration institutions in countries along the “Belt and Road” and member states of RCEP, and enhance the cross-border enforcement coverage and credibility of Hainan arbitral awards. HIAC will steadily advance the construction of overseas service platforms, actively participate in the formulation of international commercial rules, disseminate Chinese arbitration concepts, showcase Hainan’s legal practices, and help China deeply participate in global economic governance. HIAC will continuously optimize its internationalized talent pool, expand its high-level domestic and overseas arbitrator think tank, and cultivate a group of foreign-related rule-of-law talents proficient in international rules and suited to the Free Trade Port’s industrial development, solidifying talent support for internationalized services.
Fourth, deeply cultivating industrial rule-of-law empowerment to safeguard high-quality open development. HIAC will continue to focus on the Free Trade Port’s key industrial, supply, and value chains, precisely addressing the legal needs of enterprises in cross-border transactions, industrial cooperation, and risk prevention and control, regularly conducting enterprise compliance training, risk early warning, and dispute mediation services, preventing and resolving legal risks in industrial and supply chains at their source. HIAC will fully leverage the institutional advantages of arbitration to proactively serve the Free Trade Port’s open economic development in offshore trade, cross-border finance, and high-end shipping, continuously optimizing an internationalized, market-oriented, and rule-of-law-based business environment, striving to build the Hainan Free Trade Port into a preferred destination for international commercial dispute resolution, safeguarding the Free Trade Port’s high-level opening-up with high-level rule of law, and contributing Hainan’s arbitration strength to maintaining the stability and smoothness of regional and even global industrial and supply chains.
Stable rule of law ensures stable industries; excellent mechanisms ensure excellent development. Enhancing the effectiveness of international commercial dispute resolution mechanisms and maintaining the stability of industrial and supply chains constitute an important rule-of-law proposition in serving the national strategy of high-level opening-up and supporting the high-quality development of the Free Trade Port. The Hainan International Arbitration Court will always adhere to its original mission and strategic positioning, continuously deepen arbitration reform and innovation, enhance the effectiveness of foreign related rule-of-law services, solidify the foundation of industrial legal guarantees, and spare no effort in building a solid legal shield for the stability of the Free Trade Port’s industrial and supply chains—helping to accelerate the building of the Hainan Free Trade Port into an important gateway leading China’s opening-up in the new era, and contributing greater arbitration strength to serving the new development paradigm.
