Rafal Morek’s post last month, Investor-state disputes: how arbitration and mediation can intertwine to provide more resonant solutions, emphasized the increasing use of mediation to resolve investor-state disputes, albeit still confined to a small number of cases under the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) Convention. As the late Professor Derek Roebuck noted…

One of the important things that struck me about Dr. Anna Howard’s brilliant research into Mediation is the discovery that the General Counsel she interviewed for her project feel disappointed that the promise of mediation has not been realized. I feel the same disappointment – although my disappointment has a somewhat different source. What seems…

For me, one of the benefits of our new online world has been an increase in opportunities to get to work with people over distance, without having to travel that distance. While I have not physically left an area within a radius of some 60 kilometres since early 2020, I feel connected around the world,…

Slowly but surely the dispute resolution landscape is shifting for investment related disputes. More than half the respondents to the International Dispute Resolution Survey published by the Singapore International Dispute Resolution Academy (SIDRA) last year indicated that they have been involved in an investor-state dispute between 2016 and 2018. And, it is of course no…

A quarter century ago, Professor Leonard Riskin published an article describing a grid of mediator orientiations including a facilitative-evaluative dimension.  Despite critiques of this framework, including by Riskin himself, many mediators, trainers, and teachers still use these concepts as mediation models, expressing strong feelings that one model is good and the other is bad. These…

  The International Commercial Mediation Competition made a brave online appearance this year – the 16th year in which the ICC has delivered the most important competition of its kind in the world. For 15 of these 16 years it has been my privilege to be part of this experience as the coach for my…

The Singapore International Dispute Resolution Academy (“SIDRA”) issued the global International Dispute Resolution Survey: 2020 Final Report (the “SIDRA Survey”) on 3 July 2020, which studied the preferences, experiences, and perspectives of legal users (lawyers and legal advisers) and client users (corporate executives and in-house counsel) with regard to, among other mechanisms, international commercial mediation….

Interest is growing in the use of mediation for investor-state disputes. Recent webinars on investor-state mediation (including SIDRA’s recent webinar) have explored ICSID’s new investor-state mediation rules, the role of the Singapore Convention for investor-state mediation and the need for further domestic legislation on mediation. Discussions at these virtual conferences have also emphasised the importance…

I say regularly that students make the best teachers. My students continue to prove me right. In my recent ADR program I confessed to my undergraduate students that having a conversation about culture was something that made me very anxious. I feel poorly prepared and I fear, with the best intentions, causing offence and appearing…

Hot off the heels of the Singapore Convention, The Singapore International Mediation Centre (SIMC) and the Japan International Mediation Center (JIMC) on 12 September 2020 signed a Memorandum of Understanding to operate a joint protocol that provides cross-border businesses, including companies along the Singapore-Japan corridor, with an economical, expedited and effective route for resolving commercial…