We first worked together in the competition law department of an international law firm. 14 years have since passed – at a spirited pace – and we now find ourselves, for an assortment of reasons and opportunities, working in mediation. On a rainy summer’s day in London, I met with Suzanne Rab, a barrister at…
Yes, here it is. The final part of the Regulatory Robustness Rating (RRR) trilogy. For those of you who are just picking up the RRR topic for the first time, you might like to check out Part 1 and Part 2 first. You will recall that the aim of the Rating System is to offer…
Previously I posted some musings about a Mediation Friendly Star Rating System. Sort of like a Michelin Guide on the robustness of a jurisdictions regulatory framework in relation to mediation. In this post, I’d like to revisit the topic and take the idea a little further. Before I start, let me say thank you to…
Recently, Dr. Grant Morris of Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand completed valuable research on the nature of private commercial mediation in New Zealand. The aim of the June 2016 research was to examine the commercial mediation market from a gatekeepers’ perspective – that inevitably meant lawyers were the main source of data. Commercial lawyers at…
When I was shopping at the Marina Bay Sands Mall in Singapore some couple months ago, a young Singaporean approached me and politely asked me to participate in a survey. “Where are you from?” the girl stated her first question. “From Prague, Czech Republic…” She smiled and her view gave away her confusion. Obviously, she…
The next session of the UNCITRAL Working Group II that will continue to consider whether there should be a convention to enforce commercial cross-border mediation settlements will be in Vienna, Austria the week of September 19, 2016. On September 21, there will be a free evening program when 2 panels will answer questions relating to…
Recap Last time I wrote as a young mediator about my mediation path, I had just arrived in Tbilisi, Georgia. It was February 2014, when people began being killed at the Euromaidan on Independence Square in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. I was trying to ‘break into the peacebuilding field‘ but did not have much…
I begin with two poetic images. One is from an 8th century Taoist poem – I asked the boy beneath the pines. He said, “The master’s gone alone Herb-picking somewhere on the mount, Cloud-hidden, whereabouts unknown.” [Chia Tao (777-841)] And the other, more recent, from W H Auden’s poem “Law Like Love”: And always the…
At the end of March, when I finally arrived back to Prague after weeks full of traveling (I almost flew the globe around), I sat down and wanted to share with you some experiences I had having attended the Global Pound Conference Series launch in Singapore. Then I realized that the time did not…
In this blog, I’ll follow up on Deborah Masucci’s overview, and in doing so I’ll offer a three observations about technology and one about a very non-technological aspect of mediation. First, on the technology: as those who were there will know only too well, and those who have followed at arm’s length will appreciate, the…
