You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone. Al Capone This popular quote attributed to the famous US mobster announce the use of force and other dirty tricks in negotiation. I do not especially like it. I would relativise it by the following…
During its 68th session from 5 – 9 February in New York UNCITRAL Working Group II (Dispute Settlement) concluded its work on the preparation of an instrument or instruments on the enforcement of international commercial settlement agreements arising from mediation. In the mediation community we often refer to such settlements as (international) mediated settlement agreements…
During a trip to Vienna some time ago, I attended the “ICC Commission on Arbitration and ADR Meeting” where I had the opportunity to hear Toby Landau QC, a brilliant barrister and arbitrator from London, speaking about “Unreliable Recollections, False Memories and Witness Testimony”. He explained that memories are changeable and that experiences from past…
Readers who are experts on the wartime British Prime Minister or have recently watched “The Darkest Hour” may find the above caption familiar. Yes, it has been inspired by Winston Churchill’s famous quote “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” If you like the caption, feel…
As Chip and Dan Heath describe in their book Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, we are rational beings with a “Rider” that logically analyzes our surroundings. Our Rider tries to direct our emotional side, “the Elephant.” Although we like to think our Rider is in control at all times, in truth,…
For many student mediators across the globe, the start of the new year will bring the final stages of their preparation for two mediation competitions. Next week, the Lex Infinitum competition will be held at V. M. Salgaocar College of Law, Goa, followed, in February, by the ICC Mediation Week in Paris. Now in its…
This is the second in a short series of blogs interviewing regular users of mediation about what they really want from mediators and from mediation. We kicked off last month with Rebecca Clark. This month, I have the pleasure of interviewing Michael McIlwrath, who has been the head of litigation for GE Oil & Gas…
In the forty years since new visions and challenges for the administration of American justice were offered at the 1976 Pound Conference, a Quiet Revolution has altered the landscape of public and private dispute resolution around the world. (See Living the Dream of ADR). Recently, a series of day-long meetings styled as the Global Pound…
During the last twenty years, mediation has spread around the world with an amazing speed, resulting in what was called a ‘global ADR revolution’. Furthermore, mediation has become a conventional part of the court reform projects supported by international donor organizations within democracy aid programmes in developing and transitional countries all over the world. However,…
Shortly after the neighbourhood mediation started, one of the parties turned to me her eyes flashed with anger: “Everything that he is telling is false, do not listen to him…” The other party got het up: “Indeed, Mr. mediator, everything I have ever said was a lie…Do not listen to me…” Without even knowing this,…
