Imagine an e-mediator who can reframe parties’ feelings and overall mood based on their speech patterns as they talk into an ODR program. Imagine recreating the real-life intensity of emotional and social connections through an avatar in an online mediation setting. Imagine anonymous brainstorming, secret meetings in e-rooms and having access to a web-based intelligent…

After five days of intense competition between 66 teams from 32 countries, the ICC International Commercial Mediation Competition finished yesterday in Paris. The South Texas College of Law (USA) came in first, and the Bar Ilan University (Israel) was the runner-up. In the semifinals both teams beat off their competitors: the University of New South…

I mediated an insurance matter this week and as far as insurance disputes are concerned, never has a truer word been spoken; >Litigants are eager to discuss their cases Reality; the parties tend to withhold information >Mediation will be conducted in joint sessions Reality; the parties prefer private sessions >Mediation will focus on needs and…

The recent decision in Gao Hai Yan & Anor v Keeneye Holdings Ltd & Others [2011] HKEC 514, (the “wining and dining” mediation case) has generated a considerable amount of interest in the murky depths of the Arbitration-Mediation (“Arb-Med”) facility. Practitioners and academics are still engaged in deep discourse nearly two months after the case…

Like many of us I am constantly torn between simplicity and complexity. The world is complex: that’s a given. But a beautiful morning or a lover’s kiss is simplicity itself, and it’s a fool who overcomplicates it. And so with mediation, the profession/activity/vocation that has grown on me like a skin these last nineteen years….

The ICC International Commercial Mediation Competition is the only moot I know of devoted to international commercial mediation and it will take place in Paris in early February. It’s an annual event organized by the International Chamber of Commerce and has become the best excuse to travel to Paris, drink coffee and eat pastries on the…

Due to the fact I work as a Mediation professor I am always aware of the question of Ethics. Teaching Mediation implies sharing its ethical principles with the students and helping them to observe such principles in the practice of Mediation. In Brazil nowadays we rely on three Codes of Ethics devoted to Mediation. The…

While large scale efforts are being made in order to be recognized as a worldwide and a free standing profession, the mediation became a profession in some countries and it remains an experiment in others. The general public’s perceptions about mediation have registered significant changes over time. If in its early stages mediation was seen…