Mediation has long been used as a method of resolving disputes. Indeed, the practice of combining mediation and arbitration by the same neutral has been traced back to ancient Greece and Ptolemaic Egypt[1]. In his paper “Varieties of Dispute Processing”, presented to the 1976 Pound Conference, Harvard Professor Frank E.A. Sander proposed that, instead of…

  As long ago as 1981, in the very first edition of Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, Roger Fisher and William Ury proposed the following novel negotiation method:   separate the people from the problem focus on interests, not positions invent options for mutual gain and insist on using objective criteria. Later…

It’s been a long time since I wrote a blog just about mediation practice. Other things always seem more important! However, as I was mediating this week, a thought occurred to me about a rather imperceptible but very real change in my practice as a mediator, which I develop here, albeit in a simplified way….

One of the great joys of being part of the world-wide mediation community is the  opportunity to learn and keep learning from professionals whose practice is far from homogeneous. The generosity in sharing thoughts, ideas and even intellectual property is remarkable. Despite this, there is still a lot about the practice of mediation that is…

Kleros is a cryptocurrency dispute resolution platform. It uses crypto tokens and game theory to resolve real-world disputes. It follows an automated process with no discussion, no nuance, no probing questions. It seems to be at the opposite end of the dispute resolution spectrum to mediation. Yet I think there is something that mediators can…

A mediation ended without amicable agreement. The parties had reached that understanding only. It had taken several sessions over several weeks, with plenty of recrimination about the past that further damaged already damaged relationships. At least there was clarity. The consequences were clear too. It was not the preferred solution. What did this do with…

Graffiti commenting on truth and its usefulness today

I started mediating in my early 30s, surely old enough to know the difference between truth and fiction. Yet after a couple of years I began to say, first to myself then to my friends, that the concept of truth was ‘no longer useful’ in my work. What did I mean and how did I…

In a few weeks’ time I will come to the end of a two-year mediation engagement in South Eastern Europe. The conflict in question relates to environmental pollution. The issues are complex and heavily contested, and there are many stakeholders – government, city authorities, environmental groups, investors and business, to name a few. It has…