“I prefer to hope that this shift in perspective will be a chance for people, organisations, businesses, politics, whatever, to put so many of their ongoing disputes and conflicts aside because with this new perspective comes the realisation that these are not worth fighting. It is time to cooperate. May we go through and come…

“the money’s not about the money…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.” Charlie Irvine in Not about the money? The end of 2019 and the start of 2020 offered a rich variety of posts on the…

“Yet for me the same nagging question continued: what are our values? Conflict seems to touch people at the deepest levels: it brings into play ‘their judgement of what is valuable or important in life.’ Yet the values of the mediator seem to be invisible.” Charlie Irvine in Mediation’s Values: Still searching. August and September…

“Listening conveys respect to the speaker, which in turn engenders respect for the listener. People who are respected because they listen will have more influence when they speak.” Bill Marsh in Don’t Sit On Your Ass[ets] – Part 2: The Arguments. Over the last couple of months, the Kluwer Mediation Blog has offered posts on…

“In negotiations of all kinds, the greater your capacity for empathy – the more carefully you try to understand all of the other side’s motivations, interests and constraints – the more options you tend to have for potentially resolving the dispute or deadlock”. Deepak Malhotra of Harvard Business School quoted by John Sturrock in Process…

“Conversation – respectful, engaged, reciprocal, calling forth some of our greatest powers of empathy and understanding – is the moral form of a world governed by the dignity of difference.” Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, The Dignity of Difference, quoted by Ian Macduff in “Signs of hope” Following on from yesterday’s post, this second post offers…

“[…] one of the several paradoxes of mediation is that in many cases, the more logical, the more persuasive the argument, the more contrary and extreme the response. And in fact, what is needed, is the ability of advocates, and more so mediators, to build trust and create rapport.  A mystical concept for some, instantly…

The end of 2018 and the start of 2019 brought the usual diversity of posts on the Kluwer Mediation Blog.   Topics addressed include: recent legislation on mandatory mediation in Turkey, lessons on mediators’ liability from a New Zealand Court of Appeal decision, reflections from the recent “Tbilisi Mediation Days” conference in Georgia, and the recent…

“Mediating is, in the end, service. Humility is its fertile soil.” Bill Marsh in “David Richbell – Lessons in Life and Mediation” The last couple of months have offered a collection of compelling posts on the Kluwer Mediation Blog. From the analysis of court decisions in Canada and Singapore on the enforcement of mediated settlement…

“In every negotiation the most important work is done by those in the shadows.” Ian Wishart, as quoted by Bill Marsh in “Personal Connections.” August and September offered a particularly varied and vibrant selection of posts on the Kluwer Mediation Blog. The topics addressed, to name just a few, include: developments in the creation of…

“We believe that it is in the interests of our world as a whole and our own communities in particular that difficult issues are discussed with civility and dignity.”   These are the opening words of the Edinburgh Declaration of International Mediators, which was launched at the International Academy of Mediators Conference in Edinburgh in May….

In April we welcomed two new regular writers to the blog: Rick Weiler from Canada and Alan Limbury from Australia. The usual breadth of posts continued last month with posts from writers in New Zealand, Germany, Singapore, Romania, Scotland, the UK, Canada and Australia. A brief summary of each of last month’s posts appears below….

“It turns out that the “little things” are in fact the “big things”. Forget to focus on them, and we are doomed to fail. Forget to value them, and we will find ourselves chasing shadows and permanently dissatisfied.” Bill Marsh This wonderfully wise advice from Bill Marsh’s latest post on the daily work of the…

With posts on the new Japan International Mediation Centre, on reflections from the coach of the winning team in the recent ICC Mediation Competition, on top TED talks for mediators, and finally on analogies between cricket and mediation, there is something for everyone in the posts from the Kluwer Mediation Blog in February. Below you’ll…

From lessons learnt from Lord Hope’s diaries and the memoirs of Ken Newell (a Presbyterian Church minister in Northern Ireland) to a debate at the recent Lex Infinitum competition on whether the role of the mediator can be overrated, the first month of 2018 has offered up the usual variety of posts on the Kluwer…

The last month of 2017 offered up a rich assortment of posts on the Kluwer Mediation Blog. These include Sabine Walsh’s very useful summary of the European Parliament’s recent resolution on the implementation of the European Mediation Directive, and an interview by Bill Marsh with Michael McIIwrath on what users really want from mediators and…

With reviews of new mediation laws in Ireland and Vietnam, an assessment of how well Barnier and Davis are performing as negotiators in the crucial and complex Brexit negotiations, and highlights from Collaborative Scotland’s bus tour which took the message of mediation across Scotland, October has offered an engaging variety of posts on the Kluwer…

From cultural confusion to cognitive biases and recent apology legislation in Hong Kong, the recent posts on the Kluwer Mediation Blog continue to address a compelling assortment of topics. In Cultural Confusion – A Good Thing for Mediation?, Nadja Alexander shares an encounter she had with a group of mediators to highlight the cultural confusion…

August offered an eclectic mix of posts ranging from recent developments regarding mediation in investor-state disputes, the potential offered by mediation in environmental disputes in India, and the meaning of true voluntariness in mediation. Below is a brief summary of each of the posts published on the Kluwer Mediation Blog last month. In Where Might…

July saw a collection of thought-provoking and passionate posts from our writers, including the particular challenges of conducting research on mediation, insights from the Global Pound Conference in London and reflections on how little we know about our neighbours. A brief summary of all the posts in July can be found below. In Research on…

From the mediation of sports disputes to a recent mediation law in Brazil and onto lessons learnt from teaching mediation and negotiation courses in universities in Germany and New Zealand, the past month on the Kluwer Mediation Blog has provided a rich assortment of posts. A short summary of each post follows. In Investing In…

From making the case for understanding the mediator as co-creator, with the parties, of outcomes to exploring the argument that mediators need to be qualified lawyers, there has been much lively discussion on the blog this month. You will also find a post on the key findings of recent empirical research in New Zealand on…

From conciliation applications in Germany, the use of mediation for companies under judicial reorganization in Brazil, the recent INADR International Law Student Mediation Tournament at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland, to transformative teaching in Shanghai, the broad coverage of topics continues on the Kluwer Mediation Blog. Why not have a look at the summary…

March was a particularly busy month on the Kluwer Mediation Blog. From legislative developments in Ireland and Singapore, a report on the Berlin Global Pound Conference, and a more provocative post on whether grey hairs are needed to mediate, there is a lively assortment of posts below. In “Too much or too little”, Bill Marsh…