A panel of eight speakers at the Madrid IBA Conference spoke on “Projects, Practices and Policies: Developments from the World of Mediation.”\u00a0 This is the first of a two-part report on the presentations offered.<\/p>\n
The first speaker, Mercedes Tarraz\u00f3n<\/a> of Barcelona, reported that mediation in Spain had its roots in domestic and family law, and unfortunately has remained there.\u00a0 Spain’s Civil Mediation Act focuses on family applications, and a survey is currently underway to measure the use of mediation in schools, community conflicts, labor, government, regulatory\u00a0and commercial settings.\u00a0 Ms. Tarraz\u00f3n is working with the Spanish legislature to produce legislation in conformance with the 2008 EU Directive on ADR, but she reports that because of the paucity of its use mediation is not well understood by the legislators.<\/p>\n Barney Jordaan spoke about the Africa Center for Dispute Settlement<\/a>,\u00a0located within the Business School at Stellenbosch University<\/a>, Cape Town, South Africa.\u00a0 The Center’s\u00a0Patron is Archbishop Desmond Tutu.\u00a0\u00a0Jordaan noted that the legacy of conflict in South African culture remains, and he estimates that 80% of the South African population lacks efficient access to justice through the courts.\u00a0 The location of the Center within a business school rather than a law school was purposeful: Economic actors will drive the future\u00a0of South Africa, he stated, and it is the clients who will drive the lawyers, not vice versa.\u00a0 Thus, negotiation training is a requirement for MBA candidates at Stellenbosch University.\u00a0 The Center is also active in establishing community-based dispute resolution centers.\u00a0 The Center is receiving training assistance from the British-based ADR Group<\/a>.\u00a0 More information on this effort may be obtained by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Next was James McPherson, who is head of the Bahrain Chamber for Dispute Resolution.\u00a0 Mr. McPerson explained that Bahrain’s government and Royal Family are enthusiastic supporters of judicial and legal reform, and that ADR\u00a0trainings and conferences had been held over the past few years with AAA, LCIA, the American Bar Association, the ICC and others.\u00a0 The Center is underwritten by the government, and has invited the International Center for Dispute Resolution<\/a> to assist it in a broad swatch of expertise, including accounting, bookkeeping, arbitration and mediation rules, case handling systems, and so on.\u00a0 The aim is to build a sturdy and sustainable institution.\u00a0 The effort is regional, with strong participation from Saudi Arabia and other regional countries.\u00a0 Mark Appel of the ICDR characterized the Center as AAA’s presence in the region.<\/p>\n James South<\/a> of CEDR<\/a> reported on various projects undertaken with the IFC\/World Bank Group to encourage the growth of mediation in various developing markets.\u00a0 He spoke particularly of centers set up in Pakistan and, in 2004, in the Balkans.\u00a0 The latter has developed into a training center in its own right and has been responsible for more than 1,500 mediations.\u00a0 The IFC has now created an ADR Global Team and CEDR, along with CMI International<\/a>, has been engaged to assist that Team with a analysis of lessons learned during these experiences, and to identify indicia of success in considering investment in ADR in other developing markets.<\/p>\n More on this interesting and far-reaching\u00a0panel in Part II.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An illustrious panel at the Madrid IBA Conference took a broad and stimulating view of current developments in commercial mediation in a variety of markets. Part I.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,36,13,14,34],"tags":[25,12,15,33],"class_list":["post-294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conflict-resolution","category-europe","category-international","category-mediation","category-united-states","tag-adr-institutions","tag-culture","tag-mediation","tag-public-policy"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}