The four films produced by Harvard’s Kennedy School on mediating corporate-community disputes have been recognized with the Award for Best Publication or Communication by the prestigious Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR), in London.
I am honored to have written and co-directed these films, and also served as interviewer on two. The team was led by Caroline Rees, Executive Producer, who initiated the project as part of the mandate of Harvard Professor John Ruggie, Special Representative to the U.N. Secretary General for Business and Human Rights. David Stott of Match Productions was the co-director, editor and cinematographer. The Consensus Bulding Institute was fundamentally involved in the films’ planning and execution .
The CEDR Awards, given every two years, acknowledge the impact that has been made in the field of Alternative Dispute Resolution and Conflict Management internationally as well as in the UK.
The films document three seemingly insolvable disputes – a Peruvian copper mine that destroyed the livelihood of the agrarian population, a Philippine hydroelectric dam that flooded the villages of a tribe of ancestor-worshippers, and the fishermen in the Warri State in Nigeria whose environment was destroyed by oil and gas extraction. Intractable over a period of generations, all were nevertheless profoundly benefited through a mediation process that the participants themselves helped to design.
The professional gratification of working on these stories was beyond description, but even that pales in light of the international attention they are receiving. They are available for live downstream at www.BASESwiki.org. I hope that mediators, teachers, corporate representatives, NGOs and community leaders will learn from them and be inspired by them.
Just watched the films and found them fascinating and very human. Humanity is not culture bound. Thanks for sharing them and your contribution in producing them.
Joe Grynbaum, P.E.