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….
Artificial Intelligence (AI), the notion that computerised systems can replace human thought processes and interactions, continues to gain traction in all areas of life including the legal profession and in particular in the field of dispute resolution. Lex Machina, a Data-mining computer programme created at Stanford University in 2006, has been used to look for…
My colleague and fellow Kluwer author Charlie Woods has likened my scatter-gun approach to starting new projects and coming up with new ideas to “guerrilla gardening”. I am sure he means it as a compliment. Some ideas take seed…. So, here is another seed. Just a week or two ago, I was reading a (UK)…
On 25 July 2018, I was privileged to be part of a conference panel moderated by the inimitable Professor Nadja Alexander, CEO of the Singapore International Dispute Resolution Academy and my colleague at the Singapore Management University School of Law. The panel’s inspired title was “Feel the Earth Move – Shifts in the International Dispute…
(This post is being republished because of technical problems when it was first published.) One of the key debates among mediators centres on the word ‘evaluation’. I’ve written about this before – see Has the evaluative label outlived its usefulness? I’m sure many readers are familiar, even bored, with the claimed polarity between facilitative and…
It’s August and I’m cooking up some Stone Soup. What I’m actually doing is finalizing the syllabus, lesson plans, lecture notes, readings, guest speaker list and slide decks. The materials are for my Mediation Theory and Practice seminar at the University of Ottawa Law School starting in September. (Thank goodness for the last minute, otherwise…
(This post is being republished because of technical problems when it was first published). Studying and teaching with Professor Frank E.A. Sander at Harvard in the late 80’s was life changing. The energy and vision he showed – going right back to his presentation at the 1976 Pound Conference – persuaded me that fundamental changes…
“I’ve been trying to tell you, but you didn’t listen. You’ve got to go down more deeply and take more time, you’re rushing it and it’s too superficial. You’re hardly disturbing the surface. You’ll make no progress that way. And you are using so much effort. Relax. When you get into difficulty, you are expending…
I still remember the very first time I met Colin. It was during my CIArb fellowship oral assessment in Hong Kong. Entering the room with an overwhelming presence, he asked the candidates several questions on costs in arbitration. While the questions themselves were tough and challenging, it was apparent through his encouraging tone and body…
I have in previous entries (July 2012 and July 2013) written about a peer mediation initiative called the Peacemakers Conference. The purpose of the Peacemakers Conference is to teach 13-16 year olds how to resolve conflicts amicably in a workshop cum competition format. This year’s Peacemakers Conference was held from 20 to 22 June 2018….
