Over the past decade, the concept of resolving international investment disputes through mediation has gained traction among States, practitioners and academics. This is seen in the significant number of recent investment treaties that refer to mediation either as a pre-condition to arbitration, or as a stand-alone mechanism for resolving disputes. Support for mediation is also…

On January 3rd, the International Mediation Institute (IMI) released the first of eight documents reporting on the Global Pound Conference (GPC) events held in North America between 2016-17. IMI promises to release the remaining six-city reports, including the GPC Toronto Report, plus the GPC North America Report during January. While it’s hard to understand why…

One of the most enjoyable aspects of the festive season is receiving and reading books that one might not have come across otherwise. This year, I have been enjoying two quite contrasting works of literature. The first is a Manual for Spectrum Agents (Haynes Publishing) providing “detailed information about the Spectrum organisation”, based on the…

A few days ago my daughter asked me a question that challenged and inspired me, and that has me thinking still. Often, we say it is little children who catch us out with their questions. But my two adult children seem to manage to test my assumptions, ideas and actions more and more the older…

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…

Since the signing of the Singapore Convention on Mediation in August this year, there has been an increased interest on the enforceability of settlement agreements, particularly those arising from mediation. The case of Law Chau Loon v Alphire Group Pte Ltd [2019] SGHC 275 from the Singapore High Court provides us with some general legal…

This post was prepared by Christian Radu Chereji and Constantin Adi Gavrilă. There is one thing that strikes every researcher when confronted with EU/national legislation regarding mediation: when one reads the arguments of any piece of legislation, everything looks great. The powerful motives are formulated with excellent logic; but there is no follow-up, no monitoring…

It is trite that developing trust with parties and as between the parties is a vital part of the mediation process and what makes it work. This is of course easier said than done. I have previously written on trust in “Trusting Thoughts” (12 August 2012) and “More Reflections on Trust” (14 August 2015). I…

money

Twice today I’ve found myself responding to mediator reflections in these terms: the money’s not about the money. Both cases involved financial negotiation, even haggling, but that’s deceptive. The key to settlement lay not in the realm of calculation and rationality but in the more opaque social world of face, punishment, justice and emotion. In…

If the natural resources of the planet and its capacity to cope with our waste are finite, is it reasonable for mediators to be encouraging people to search for positive sum solutions which can benefit all parties to a negotiation? If you can achieve a win-win in one case could it, on a global scale,…