This post was drafted by Leonardo D’Urso, Julia Radanova, and Constantin Adi Gavrila. Introduction In the variegated landscape of European legal systems, mediation has often been overshadowed by traditional litigation. Yet, the winds of change are blowing, particularly with the emergence of soft mandatory mediation models. Among these, Italy’s opt-out model stands as a beacon…

Nadja: Irakli , thanks for making the time for this chat. Before we start, can you say a little bit about your role in mediation in Georgia and the region?Irakli: Thank you for inviting me and expressing interest towards Georgian mediation. I hold several roles in the development of mediation in Georgia: as the Chairman…

The recent post by Ting-Kwok IU examined the Hong Kong Ordinance designed to protect children from abuse and to protect some professionals (excluding mediators) for reporting such abuse. This has put me in mind of section 316  of the New South Wales Crimes Act, which makes it a crime for an adult who fails, without…

Rafal Morek’s post last month, Investor-state disputes: how arbitration and mediation can intertwine to provide more resonant solutions, emphasized the increasing use of mediation to resolve investor-state disputes, albeit still confined to a small number of cases under the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) Convention. As the late Professor Derek Roebuck noted…

Mediation has long been used as a method of resolving disputes. Indeed, the practice of combining mediation and arbitration by the same neutral has been traced back to ancient Greece and Ptolemaic Egypt[1]. In his paper “Varieties of Dispute Processing”, presented to the 1976 Pound Conference, Harvard Professor Frank E.A. Sander proposed that, instead of…

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”)…

One of the important things that struck me about Dr. Anna Howard’s brilliant research into Mediation is the discovery that the General Counsel she interviewed for her project feel disappointed that the promise of mediation has not been realized. I feel the same disappointment – although my disappointment has a somewhat different source. What seems…

It has taken a lot of time and effort for the Ukrainian mediation community to enact the law on mediation (the “Law”). On 16 November 2021, the Ukrainian Parliament finally passed it. This development opens up a new chapter and further prospects for the growth of mediation practice in Ukraine. Congratulations to all my Ukrainian…

What is the SIMC COVID-19 Protocol? The Singapore International Mediation Centre (SIMC) has just launched the SIMC COVID-19 Protocol to provide businesses with an expedited, economical and effective route to resolve any international commercial disputes during the COVID-19 pandemic period. SIMC’s Covid-19 protocol is a great example of a leading mediation service provider reaching out…

The fairytale of mediation in Greece starts in 2008. Back then, a group of forward thinkers (or disillusioned persons, depending on the angle of the view) took the first class on mediation in Greece (organised by CIArb) and a little later, they received the CIArb accreditation. A few more persons of the same mindset took…