I’ve just been in London presenting at the terrific UIA Mediation Forum  and my daily train travels constantly exposed me to this image. As the conference themes developed, the image took on an even more significant meaning for me. Let me explain. An early speaker, Kimberlee Kovach (Founding Officer and Past Chair of the American Bar Association DR Section) took us on a journey tracing how mediation became part of the successful dispute resolution process in the United States. She noted the significance of the 1976 Pound Conference – a belated apology by the profession and the jud ..read more

Daniel Kahneman, the psychologist who won the Nobel prize for economics, died in March. He described himself as the grandfather of behavioural economics, which provides so many insights into how people perceive the world and take decisions in practice, rather than in the more theoretical, rational world of homo economicus. His book ‘Thinking Fast and Slow’, summarises his research – much of which was carried out in partnership with Amos Tversky. The book is a goldmine for mediators trying to help parties better understand conflict, explore options and make decisions. At the heart of this work ..read more

Rafal Morek’s post last month, Investor-state disputes: how arbitration and mediation can intertwine to provide more resonant solutions, emphasized the increasing use of mediation to resolve investor-state disputes, albeit still confined to a small number of cases under the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) Convention. As the late Professor Derek Roebuck noted in The Myth of Modern Mediation in 2007: “Everywhere in the Ancient Greek world, including Ptolemaic Egypt, arbitration was normal and in arbitration the mediation element was primary.” Switching hats So ..read more

Rafal Morek’s post last month, Investor-state disputes: how arbitration and mediation can intertwine to provide more resonant solutions, emphasized the increasing use of mediation to resolve investor-state disputes, albeit still confined to a small number of cases under the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) Convention. As the late Professor Derek Roebuck noted in The Myth of Modern Mediation in 2007: “Everywhere in the Ancient Greek world, including Ptolemaic Egypt, arbitration was normal and in arbitration the mediation element was primary.” Switching hats ..read more

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) sustainability has become a global priority for corporations. As part of this movement, mediation emerges as a powerful tool to promote effective dispute resolution and to align with ESG principles. The G20 meeting recently held in Rio de Janeiro, my home city, highlights the urgency of addressing environmental and social issues on a global scale. In this context, access to justice becomes a crucial agenda, especially for companies seeking to integrate ESG principles into their operations. Mediation plays a key role by offering an efficient and colla ..read more

This is Part 2 of a two-part blogpost. Part 1 was published in January 2024. This blog explores what narrative means for us in the field of conflict resolution as we navigate an increasingly complex global context. Where are we now? The conflict resolution field has also been active in the task of challenging and changing the narrative. A useful literature review by Cobb, Castel and Sultanli , which explores the implications for Strategic Narrative Practice, has produced important findings about the complexity of the conflicts facing the world  and where the narrative might fit in explor ..read more

This is Part 1 of a two-part blogpost. Part 2 will be published in February 2024. This blog explores what narrative means for us in the field of conflict resolution as we navigate an increasingly complex global context. We humans love stories. Wherever we are in the world, whatever our culture, our beliefs and our history, we all have stories to share and we are drawn into the stories others share with us. Neuroscience explains to us why and how stories have a unique way of engaging our senses and emotions – in a way that facts and figures do not. Karen Eber’s useful Ted talk demonstrates tha ..read more

As I mentioned before in some posts here at Kluwer, according to the Brazilian National Council of Justice, there are close to 90 million lawsuits currently in course in the country. Moreover, on average, it takes around 10 years for a lawsuit to reach closure if all appeals have been exhausted. Interestingly enough , one of the biggest litigators in Brazil is the State. According to a study published by Instituto de Ensino e Pesquisa Insper, by the end of 2020, Brazil has already exceeded the mark of R$ 5.5 trillion in tax debts undergoing judicial and administrative disputes at Federal, Stat ..read more

Mediation has long been used as a method of resolving disputes. Indeed, the practice of combining mediation and arbitration by the same neutral has been traced back to ancient Greece and Ptolemaic Egypt[1]. In his paper “Varieties of Dispute Processing”, presented to the 1976 Pound Conference, Harvard Professor Frank E.A. Sander proposed that, instead of regarding litigation as the default, disputants might be steered to the dispute resolution processes appropriate to the circumstances of their dispute. His paper envisioned “by the year 2000, not merely a courthouse but a Dispute Resolution C ..read more

Do you like this pair of cufflinks? This blog post is my sharing on how I had managed to purchase this pair of cufflinks in Melbourne.   I had taken a break in late October to travel to Melbourne to see my son who is doing a master’s degree there. On 26 October 2023, we walked past the court areas in Lonsdale Street for lunch. While I was waiting for the traffic lights, I saw several mannequins wearing judge and barrister robes on the mezzanine floor of a building. Out of curiosity, I decided to pay a visit to the place after lunch in order to find out more about it.   It is a cloth ..read more