This is a tale from an ancient piece of Chinese literature – Lu’s Commentaries of History – – compiled in 239 B.C. by Lu Buwei, the Prime Minister of the state of Qin.- “There was once a villager who had lost his hatchet. Thinking it was stolen by his neighbour’s son, Wang, he began observing…

“The ground is so wet; it wasn’t like this in the past. We can’t get started on this year’s soil preparation.” In a recent mediation involving farmers, this was the response to my early inquiry about how things were going, generally. These days, I find that the topic of climate change and its effects arises,…

Stop apologising

(This blog is adapted from a longer version published by Prof John Lande as part of Theories of Change for the Dispute Resolution Movement: Actionable Ideas to Revitalize Our Movement. The Theory of Change symposium asked mediators and scholars to think big about their dreams and visions for the future, and was recently published on…

Introduction This post provides an overview of legal aspects of mediation in Uzbekistan. It will start with some brief historical background information and proceed to the analysis of the Law “On Mediation”, other relevant laws and amendments that were made to facilitate the use of mediation in Uzbekistan. Historical Background The use of various dispute…

At a lunch at Globe House, Temple Place in London in early 2006 on a balcony overlooking the Thames, the host, Michael Leathes, then an in-house corporate counsel with some years of user experience in mediation and the arb-med hybrid, asked me and the others present – Jeremy Lack, Tina Monberg, Miryana Nešić and Irena…

“Does the United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation (“Singapore Convention”) apply to investor-state disputes?” This intriguing question was deliberated recently at George Washington University Law School by a star-studded panel comprising of the Hon’ble Judge Charles N. Brower (Twenty Essex Street Chambers, London), Ms. Frauke Nitschke (Legal Counsel, ICSID) and Mr….

The United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation, known as the Singapore Convention on Mediation (the “Singapore Convention”), was opened for signature on 7 August 2019. The Singapore Convention, hailed as the “missing piece” in the international dispute resolution enforcement framework, establishes a framework for the cross-border recognition and enforcement of settlement…

Mediators should speak up confidently for mediation. In this post I will consider some reasons why this might be difficult, and others why it is so necessary. It is not only that mediation is not sufficiently known. It can also be intimidating, and it is our job to explain it. Shortly after I had finished…

Is this yet another case in which New York is setting global trends? By the end of the year, the state courts in New York are due to have a system in place requiring that civil and commercial disputes be resolved through presumptive mediation. “Presumptive mediation” means an “automatic”, pre-trial, statewide program of court-sponsored ADR….