We are in the midst of the Rugby World Cup 2011 down here in New Zealand – which may not mean much to those nations not playing the ‘great game’ but the tournament is the 3rd largest global sporting event after the FIFA World Cup and the Olympics so you can only imagine the impact…
1. Unlike the arbitral process where courts strive to distinguish between the concepts of a private process and a confidential process, the mediation process is indisputably and inherently confidential. But what happens if one party breaches this confidentiality during the mediation? In formal terms, can the act by one party in breach be treated as…
Plastered onto the rear fender of my next-door neighbor’s Honda is a bumper sticker that asks, “If you can’t change your mind, are you sure you still have one?” It’s a cheeky question perhaps, but nonetheless a relevant one. With an election year coming up in 2012, the American presidential campaign season is in full…
CNJ, the National Justice Council created on December 31st, 2004, and set up on June 14th, 2005 is an organization of the Brazilian Justice Department, with headquarters in the Federal District. It covers the whole national territory aiming at the coordination, administrative control and improvement of public services as far as Justice is concerned. Its…
I want to debunk two myths about mediation. One, it need not always involve a neutral third party and second, mediation should not just be an institutionalised service or enshrined within law and business school curriculum, it should be a way of life and the first thinking in everyday living; a philosophy that shapes everyone’s…
As this is my first post to the new Kluwer Mediation Blog I thought it appropriate to take a moment to introduce myself and provide a brief summary of my background and experience. My intent is that this will assist the reader (clients, lawyers, other mediators, academics, students and innocent bystanders who have chanced upon…
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 economic challenges facing society have finally hit the civil justice system. Courthouses have seen huge cutbacks, and San Francisco has all but shutdown civil jury trials. No one thought this was going to happen to such a venerable institution as the jury system, but in these difficult times, nothing is sacred. Reduced budgets translate…
I just returned from (mostly) sunny Brisbane, Australia running a pilot program (5 to 6 September 2011) on intercultural mediation competencies for the International Mediation Institute before speaking at LEADR’s conference “kon gres” (7 to 9 September 2011). It was an honour to be training with Professor Hal Abramson (Touro Law School) and Ms. Gigi…
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…
