At a recent excellent conference hosted by Professor Ulla Glaesser at Viadrina University in Frankfurt (Oder), one of the workshop sessions focussed on the extent to which mediators can or should disclose or express their views when engaged in politically-related mediation work – or more generally. What a fascinating conversation we had. It was no…

This blog entry has its origins in two threads of conversation. First, as I write, we are just three weeks out from the 2018 Forum on Online Dispute Resolution, to be hosted by the NZ Centre for ICT Law and Auckland Law School. What has been an annual – even flagship – Forum is now…

I would like to begin this blog with a big thank you to Prof. Dr. Ulla Glässer and the European Viadrina University of Frankfurt an der Oder in Germany (the “other” Frankfurt, the one on the German-Polish border). Thank you for the Mediation Moves international workshop and conference, which took place the first weekend of…

Hot off the press, the case of Chan Gek Yong v Violet Netto (practising as L F Violet Netto) and another and another matter [2018] SGHC 208 (‘Violet Netto’) decided by the Singapore High Court provides us with clues as to the Court’s general attitude towards mediation and mediated settlement agreements (‘MSAs’). It is useful…

It was only on the 31st of May when I published a blog on the new Greek mediation law. Just a few months later a part II, or rather a sequel, seems necessary. As discussed in my first blog on the matter, compulsory mediation was recently enacted in Greece by the new mediation law in…

A recent experience as co-mediator for the Italy China Business Mediation Centre  (a mediation centre jointly run by the Milan Chamber of Arbitration and CCPIT Mediation Centre) with a CCPIT (The China Council for the Promotion of International Trade) mediator from China in a commercial dispute between a Chinese company and an Italian company, has…

“The last great act of a courageous leader is to let go,” I suggested to the CEO as he pondered whether this was in fact a good time to step down. He had many reasons not to leave. He attributed these to other people’s needs for a good transition, giving him a decent send-off, planning…

These are heady days in international mediation circles. A panel discussion earlier this summer at an UNCITRAL conference entitled “Feel the Earth Move – Shifts in the International Dispute Resolution Landscape,” dedicated largely to mediation, captures the sentiment. Reasons for the excitement include the approval of a draft of the UNCITRAL treaty for enforcing mediated…

Quite often, we hear mediators and mediation trainers using the fable of “Blind Men and an Elephant”, which is a story about several blind persons describing an elephant differently out of their own experience by way of their respective touches of the different parts of the same elephant, to illustrate that a party’s own interpretation…

On Thursday, August 30, 2018 the Canadian Federal Court of Appeal did the unthinkable. Its Judgement in Tsleil-Waututh Nation v. Canada (Attorney General), 2018 FCA 153 (CanLII) quashed approval of the $9.3-billion (CAN) Trans Mountain oil pipeline. The Canadian government announced last spring that it would purchase the Trans Mountain pipeline from Kinder Morgan Ltd….