European Mediation Training For Practitioners Of Justice

The importance of the free movement of persons and the proper functioning of the internal market, in particular concerning the availability of mediation services in cross-border disputes, was an important point on the agenda of the European Directive 2008/52/EC of 21 May 2008 on certain aspects of mediation in civil and commercial matters. The European Mediation Training for Practitioners of Justice (EMTPJ) is an initiative of the Association for International Arbitration (AIA) and supported by the European Commission. It is an intensive mediation training that purports to create mediators specialized in cross border mediation. This handbook is specially developed for "European Mediators" dealing with cross-border mediations in civil and commercial matters.

A practical reference on the EU rules and international initiatives that impact directly on EU cross-border disputes, this handbook is a must-have for any practitioner of cross-border mediation. The EU Mediation Directive 2008/52/EC laid down obligations on EU Member States to encourage quality of mediators and providers across specific compliance considerations, including codes of conduct and training, court referral, enforceability of mediated settlements, confidentiality of mediation, the effect of mediation on limitation periods, and encouraging public information. The book is organized into clear and consistent themes, structured and numbered in a common format to provide easily accessible provisions and commentary across the essential considerations of the Directive. All EU countries which have complied, along with Denmark (which opted out of implementing the Directive), or attempted to comply, with the Directive are included, allowing straightforward comparison of key issues across the different countries in this important and evolving area. Supplementary points of practical use, such as statistics on the success rates of mediation and advice on the requirements for parties to participate in mediation, and for parties and lawyers to consider mediation, add further value to the jurisdiction-specific commentary. A comparative table of the mediation laws forms an invaluable quick-reference appendix for an overview and comparison of the information of each jurisdiction, together with English translations of each country's mediation law or legislative provisions. Address this dynamic area of law with the benefit of guidance across all elements of the Directive impacting practice, provided by respected and experienced editors from the knowledgeable European authority in mediation, ADR Center, along with a host of expert contributors.

Mediation is rapidly becoming a norm in cross-border dispute resolution among European Union (EU) Member States. Accordingly, an important question for legal advisers to ask themselves is: Which jurisdiction offers the best legal framework to support a potential future mediation of my client’s dispute? This book responds to this question by examining the law on mediation in each Member State on a chapter-by-chapter basis. Each country analysis applies the book’s overarching principle of a specially designed Regulatory Robustness Rating System, which is thoroughly explained in an introductory chapter. This framework offers a highly effective way to analyse the quality and robustness of each of the EU’s twenty-nine national jurisdictions’ legal frameworks relevant to mediation (including legislation, case law, practice directions, codes of conduct, standards, and other regulatory instruments) and factor such an analysis into choices about governing law in mediation clauses and other agreements. Among the issues and topics covered are the following: • congruence of domestic and international legal frameworks; • transparency and clarity of content of mediation laws; • standards and qualifications for mediators; • rights and obligations of participants in mediation; • access to mediation services; • access to internationally recognised and skilled mediators; • enforceability of clauses and mediated settlement agreements; • confidentiality and flexibility; • admissibility of evidence from mediation in subsequent proceedings; • impact of commencement of mediation on litigation limitation periods; • relationship and attitude of courts to mediation; and • regulatory incentives for legal advisers to engage in mediation. This detailed analysis clearly allows users and other regulatory stakeholders to look closely and critically at regulatory regimes for mediation in order to make informed choices and develop appropriate strategies in relation to the law that governs their mediation. This is the first book to consider authoritatively what makes good mediation law and what makes a jurisdiction attractive for cross-border mediation purposes in terms of its regulatory framework. As a resource that identifies potential strengths and weaknesses of each EU Member State’s regulatory regime, it has no peers and will be welcomed and put to use by the alternative dispute resolution community in Europe and beyond.

This volume gathers a selection of papers presented at the International SPES Conference Business for Peace, Strategies for Hope held in Ypres in April 2014. The papers illustrate the impact of religion in peace management and present solutions and practices for corporate peace-building.

As judiciaries advance, exploring how court mediation programs can provide opportunities for party-directed reconciliation whilst ensuring access to formal legal channels requires careful investigation. Court Mediation Reform explores comparative empirical findings in order to examine the association between court mediation structure and perceptions of justice, efficiency and confidence in courts.

Concerned by the high attrition rates for sexual crime and the secondary victimization experienced by victims during their participation in the criminal justice system, this book analyses the extent to which restorative justice can address the justice gap that exists in current justice provision. Building on clinical experience and earlier research on sexual crime the authors engage with the complex dynamics and traumatic impact of sexual crime as a critical starting point for their research and examine whether restorative justice can contribute to a more enhanced justice response. The book presents extensive new data on restorative justice as applied in sexual violence cases across the globe. It engages with feminist concerns regarding the traumatic impact of sexual violence and the power imbalances that characterise these offences, as well as the potential for re-traumatisation and re-victimisation during the judicial process. While there is a risk of coercion of the victim to participate in the process, and manipulation of restorative justice by the offender, restorative justice has the potential to lead to the reprivatisation of sexual crime and ultimately to its decriminalisation. Having examined these topics in detail, the book concludes there is an important role for restorative justice in addressing the justice gap that exists after sexual crime and offers guidance on how this can be achieved.

Published as part of the integrated project "Responses to violence in everyday life in a democratic society"

Don't know your BATNA from your WATNA from your ZOPA? Think PATNA is a type of rice? Not sure what Cellar Blindness is? Or what FDRs/DI Ps/ LIPs are? Mediation: An A-Z Guide tells you, distilling practical information, informed comment and useful advice and tips. Over 500 entries provide curated information on practical mediation topics guiding you through the thicket of mediation jargon. Mediation: An A-Z Guide ensures you have no need to feel nervous about mediation because you: will understand what is being said will have the knowledge and confidence to use the buzz words Whether you are a mediator, a representative, a client, a lawyer or a nonlawyer you will find what you are looking for. Portable and practical and with an easy-to-read, punchy style and user-friendly format this is more than just a dictionary. Entries follow the same pattern: Topic Heading Definition Comment In practice – bullet points nail the everyday application of the topic See also – for internal cross references Follow up – for further sources

Despite the growing national and international regulatory framework to support cross-border mediation, the use of such mediation appears to remain stubbornly low. This book focuses in particular on the European Union’s (EU’s) continued efforts to encourage the use of cross-border mediation and examines why such efforts have had a limited impact. It does so by drawing on rare, and at times surprising, detailed insights from in-house counsel of multinational companies regarding their use of EU cross-border commercial mediation. By viewing mediation through the lens of disputants, new and important findings regarding why disputants do, and do not, use cross-border mediation have emerged. While these findings are of primary relevance to EU policy and practice, they have implications far beyond the EU context at a time of increasing international interest in cross-border mediation. The analysis of the insights provided by the disputants reveals, for example: the prominent role played by negotiation as a cross-border dispute resolution process; that negotiation is a key comparator for disputants when considering whether to use mediation; how the EU’s continued focus on understanding and presenting mediation as an alternative to litigation has resulted in measures which are insufficient to address fully the barriers to the use of mediation; intriguing barriers to the use of mediation which arise from the association which disputants draw between mediation and negotiation; how the relationship which disputants draw between mediation and negotiation paradoxically raises both opportunities for, and obstacles to, the increased use of mediation; and what disputants need in order to increase their use of cross-border mediation. The qualitative nature (by way of interviews) of the research conducted for this book has enabled the identification of nuanced and novel findings regarding mediation’s position and potential in cross-border dispute resolution. These findings, together with a detailed examination of the EU Directive on Certain Aspects of Mediation in Civil and Commercial Matters and the EU’s continued initiatives to foster the use of mediation, form the foundation upon which this book’s recommendations are built. Changing the frame to view the use of mediation through the disputants’ perspective, as this book does, provides the opportunity for the EU to promote cross-border mediation in a way which resonates more deeply with disputants and responds more fully to their concerns and needs. This thought-provoking book will be of interest not only to European and national bodies seeking to promote the use of mediation but clearly also to dispute resolution academics, in-house counsel, and of course mediators and dispute resolution practitioners in general.

Mediation as a dispute resolution method is being rediscovered today in Western legal systems. Modern jurisdictions now tend to promote mediation according to a “formal legislative approach”, based on recommendations issued by international organizations, and giving in to the pressure of public opinion, tired of the constant justice crisis. The EU Directive of 2008 on civil and commercial mediation has imposed in vague terms the obligation to ensure the quality of mediation services, and by declaring only a certain level of training for mediators as desirable, it has left it up to member states to decide whether to make accreditation compulsory. In such a framework, where there is likely to be a further push towards regulation, we need to discuss what basic mediator skills are. The point is that the mediator's professionalism is not easily pigeonholed in a set of disciplinary skills. The mediation model that the European Union has sought to promote and regulate is highly legal, but good mediation skills are not necessarily the same as the ones required to earn a degree in law and then pass the bar exam. University education must not necessarily train mediators, but rather form professionals who should be aware of the skills needed in mediation, or who know enough about mediation to direct their clients to mediation when the need arises. In order to prepare for the dispute and discern when to negotiate and when to fight, it becomes important to simulate conflict experientially, and to field-test what works in managing it, and when possible, in solving it. Simulating conflict using audio recordings, videos, and feedback reports allows the teacher to make the learner relive what happened: decisive moments, what could have been said differently or better, what should have not been said, posture, signs of nervousness, proxemics, all that which makes us feel more comfortable or uncomfortable in a situation. Empirical research using a socio-psychological paradigm has shown, for example, that mediators are assessed as effective when they are able to create an atmosphere of trust in mediation meetings, adapting flexibly to the situation, and transmitting energy, optimism and a non-judgmental attitude.