Mediation has produced some surprising and unexpected outcomes. One has been its revolutionary speed of acceptance as a means of bringing a civil dispute to a conclusion without judicial determination. Judicial determination has a lot of benefits. One is that there is a clear, authoritative statement of the legal rights of parties in opposition. Another…
I like the Christmas season. It marks a very happy time in the year for me and I’m afraid, it makes me a bit silly. In that spirit, I hope readers will forgive that I start off with an Elephant story… I recently had the need to think about the various models of mediation that…
This blog is inspired by a page from Monty Python’s ‘Big Red Book’ entitled ‘Why Accountancy is Not Boring.’ (Apologies to those who have not come across the Pythons’ rather English form of humour – for the original piece see http://arago4.tnw.utwente.nl/stonedead/publications/sketches/accountancy.html) Apologies too to accountants everywhere who, in the 1970’s, were probably as easy a…
On November 29, 2011, the European Commission announced (MEMO/11/840) its proposals for a new Directive on consumer ADR and a new Regulation on consumer ODR. With some countries in the Eurozone in deeper financial trouble than ever, and the future of the EU uncertain, the Commission has just sent a clear signal that the promotion…
In his blog post on the 22nd of November, Kenny Aina referred to judges who mediate, commenting that many judges do not possess a mediator’s paradigm. To find out what that is, you will have to read Kenny’s blog. However, like it or not, many judges do mediate, both retired judges and active judges. In…
As we all know mediation is an interest-based method to resolve conflicts. Nevertheless it is not always easy to know: • which interests drive parties into a conflict • which interests make them want to resolve conflicts and • which interests have to be met in the solution. The first question I ask in the…
It has been nearly a year since the Federal Code of Civil Procedure (“CCP”) has entered into force in Switzerland (text available, in French, at: http://www.admin.ch/ch/f/rs/c272.html). The purpose of this post is to briefly describe how mediation is now legally embodied at the judicial level and whether this contributes to the development of mediation in…
It’s been a tough week. In fact, it has been a tough month. And, on reading Geoff Sharp’s post from 30th November, I am amused and reassured to see that I am not alone in thinking this! Maybe it’s the time of year, maybe it’s the weather over here in the soggy Northwest of Ireland,…
I am writing this from outside my home country, on a two-week assignment. It’s not a “mediation” as we might typically know it – not yet, anyway – but rather an early stage engagement with a long-standing and profoundly deep-rooted conflict. My job at this stage is simply to listen to how some of those…
One of the things that has been exercising me for some time is the question of what constitutes success in commercial mediation. I ask the question because the experience of the London office of my international law firm – which has attempted to gather data on mediations in which we have participated for nearly 15…
