Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) sustainability has become a global priority for corporations. As part of this movement, mediation emerges as a powerful tool to promote effective dispute resolution and to align with ESG principles. The G20 meeting recently held in Rio de Janeiro, my home city, highlights the urgency of addressing environmental and social…

This is Part 2 of a two-part blogpost. Part 1 was published in January 2024. This blog explores what narrative means for us in the field of conflict resolution as we navigate an increasingly complex global context. Where are we now? The conflict resolution field has also been active in the task of challenging and…

Singapore is widely known as a leading centre on the map of international mediation. On 7 August 2019, a signing ceremony for the United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation, nowadays commonly known as the Singapore Convention, was held there. On 23 February 2024, Singapore will host the 25th International Bar Association…

Tribalism is often referenced as a significant factor in much of the conflict we see around us at the moment. Perhaps this isn’t so surprising when we look back at the story of human evolution as described by biological anthropologist David Samsom in a recent book “Our Tribal Future: How to channel our human instinct…

The Magic in Mediation This is a longer blog post than is normal but I will not be alone in describing Ken Cloke as one of the most influential figures in my life, both professionally and personally. Ken’s wisdom and humanity, expressed so well in his many books and seminars, have been hugely important to…

This is Part 1 of a two-part blogpost. Part 2 will be published in February 2024. This blog explores what narrative means for us in the field of conflict resolution as we navigate an increasingly complex global context. We humans love stories. Wherever we are in the world, whatever our culture, our beliefs and our…

As I mentioned before in some posts here at Kluwer, according to the Brazilian National Council of Justice, there are close to 90 million lawsuits currently in course in the country. Moreover, on average, it takes around 10 years for a lawsuit to reach closure if all appeals have been exhausted. Interestingly enough , one…

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…

Reframing is an important part of the mediator’s toolkit. It can help parties look at things from a different perspective to broaden their understanding and it can help put offers and options in a different light to aid resolution. The importance of reframing was highlighted at a recent workshop led by academics from the Universities…

Do you like this pair of cufflinks? This blog post is my sharing on how I had managed to purchase this pair of cufflinks in Melbourne.   I had taken a break in late October to travel to Melbourne to see my son who is doing a master’s degree there. On 26 October 2023, we…