The U.K.’s decision to leave the EU and the voting in of the protectionist Donald Trump to the US presidency has drawn both the UK and the USA into the Nash Trap. U.S. mathematician John Nash (the movie ‘A Beautiful Mind’) postulated that Adam Smith’s declaration that ‘In competition, individual ambition serves the common good’…
I recently attended the annual American Bar Association Dispute Resolution conference in San Francisco. Several themes emerged (for me) as fairly critical for modern lawyers. Here’s a top ten. Problem-Solving and Risk Analysis is more than learning about the law or what a court might do. Most issues which clients bring to lawyers are resolved…
Conciliation is attracting more and more users for its prided features as an easily accessible, cost- and time-effective procedure for dispute resolution. It is supported and also evidenced in the recent effort put into the discussion by UNCITRAL Working Group II to establish new instruments – a convention and a model law – with regard…
The European Company Law Special Issue on mediation and corporate disputes focuses on the law and practice of mediation for corporate disputes in different European countries (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain and the UK). Contributors are both academics and experienced practitioners active in the field of mediation. They are: • for Austria:…
In 2017 we find that the mediation market is lumpy. There is a relatively small pool of mediators, including the founding fathers and mothers of mediation, who firmly established credibility and respect for the discipline, who have honed their craft over the years and who are now the “go to” individuals for probably the majority…
I love movies, especially the ones with real stories! And I usually try to make some sort of correlation between the “real stories” portrait at the movies and those I hear at my mediation practice. Last week I watched the film “Hacksaw Ridge”, a great true story of Desmond Doss who, during one of the…
This article was prepared by Rasim Gjoka, Merita Bala and Constantin-Adi Gavrilă, mediators and company-community facilitators. The idea to write about this topic came up after a meeting of community and company members, discussing on finding solutions to sensitive issues -related to environment, safety, investment and employment. After the interactive communication and dialogue, and sometimes…
I have just read Ian Macduff’s recent Kluwer blog (26 November: “Upheaval and resilience: a note from the Shaky Isles”). What a privilege it is, in this blog, to follow Ian’s erudite writing. He captures so well the spirit of the age, with all its uncertainty, tragedy, hope and opportunity. On that theme, my wife…
Nothing is more fundamental to life than water. Water is also a potent fuel for conflict. Access to water has created many disputes through the ages. Conflicts over water are about scarcity, control, degradation, incompatible use, and quality. Their history goes back to much earlier than 2500 BC, when the city-states of Lagash and Umma…
Tackling the cause of a dispute requires attention to detail. Often the real problem is lost in translation. Turning the fall out into legal definitions is the first step but it most certainly is not the most important as the law is only a component in a dispute and rarely provides an answer to it….
