In 2006, the Hong Kong Government introduced a scheme that marriages can be officiated by civil celebrants at a time and a venue chosen by the couple. Since then, I have been practising as a civil celebrant along with my other areas of practice. At the time of becoming a civil celebrant, I thought officiating…
This week the facilitator of a conflict resolution group to which I belong posed this question: ‘What is the greatest challenge currently facing us?’ My answer came quickly – the threat of hyper-polarization in an increasingly dangerous world. It was not particularly original or insightful of me – hyper-polarization seems to feature constantly in…
My participation in the Singapore Convention Week (SC Week, August 2022), at the invitation of the Singapore Minister of Justice and the UNCITRAL Academy, has raised my awareness about the advantages of co-mediation. As I mentioned in my previous post, among several relevant topics discussed on our panel , the one related to the benefits…
Secondary school students also have an important role to play in upholding the rule of law. The idea of organising a mediation essay competition for secondary school students was mooted in 2019. Despite the covid pandemic, the Mediation Essay Competition 2020 was successfully organised by the Department of Justice, the Education Bureau, Rotary International…
The quest for India’s comprehensive legislation on commercial mediation has culminated in the formulation of the Draft Mediation Bill 2021 (“Bill”). The Bill was tabled by the Union Law Minister in the Indian Parliament in December 2021, after which it was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law & Justice (“Committee”)…
In the famous story of Noah’s Ark, Noah questions God about how he will find the animals he has been instructed to put in the ark. God replies, ‘If you build it, they will come’. The consistent repetition of this quotation throughout history (think of Kevin Costner’s movie Field of Dreams ) has created something…
One of the great professional satisfactions of being part of the mediation community is that it sits within a much wider cluster of non-adjudicative processes. This proximity to a broader cluster represents an opportunity for learning, experiment and the exercise of curiosity and investigation. In Australia, the cluster of which mediation is a part includes…
Mediators work hard to help parties to a dispute to explore and understand their underlying needs and interests, which might have been forgotten or overlooked in the defence of a position that was once adopted to promote their interests. A recent book by political scientist Krzysztof Pelc ‘Beyond Self-interest – why the market rewards those…
Dear Young Mediation Enthusiast, Thank you for writing to me again. Time really flies as my last letter to you was written ten months ago on 2 December 2021. It is most encouraging to hear that you have been doing mediation cases of different nature and you find the work as a family mediator most…
The consultation phase of the independent review of the Australian National Mediator Accreditation System (NMAS Review 2020-22) was completed in May and Findings and Recommendations are now available. The NMAS has been reviewed twice since its implementation in 2008. The Mediator Standards Board(MSB) share on their website that the most recent review was led by…
