Australia is passing legislation encouraging parties to most forms of civil disputes to take genuine steps to resolve their dispute prior to commencing litigation. The idea came from a report of NADRAC (National Alternative Dispute Resolution Advisory Council) of which I am the new Chair. NADRAC advises the Commonwealth Attorney-General and has been in existence…
As an effect of the Romanian Mediation Law and the EU Directive, for the past years, the mediation profession is growing exponentially in Romania. To date, seven or eight thousand mediators took the basic training and almost three thousand became authorized by the Romanian Mediation Council while the other five thousand were mainly interested in…
The other day my friend and fellow mediator, Jill Howieson, was showing me pictures of gaps in buildings. Now, these are neither accidental gaps nor defects in buildings. Rather these gaps are very deliberate; they form an essential element of construction design. They are the famous architectural gaps of architect Carlo Scarpa. Scarpa was well-known…
On May 16, 2011, the Swiss Supreme Court confirmed a previous ruling on the content and interpretation of a dispute resolution clause that provided for a conciliation attempt prior to resorting to arbitration (decision No. 4A_46/2011, X GmbH v. Y Sàrl, accessible here in French). The clause at stake was drafted as follows (free translation…
When do mediators get to talk to one another? There are of course various conferences. They produce a lot of useful papers and discussions but time is short. Co-mediators get to talk a little but it is usually about the issue at hand. Even mediators who work in a mediation practice are off mediating and…
One of the things I value most highly about my mediation practice is the trust that is put in me by the people with whom I work. The parties to a mediation will tell me about their hopes, wishes and fears within a conflict, and will trust me to keep these to myself. It is…
