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…

The ICC Commission on Arbitration and ADR has published an interesting report on “Facilitating Settlement in International Arbitration” (“Report”), which provides guidance on the effective use of mediation within arbitration proceedings, as well as on other manners of facilitating settlement by arbitrators. The ICC has been promoting mediation – within the framework of its mainstream…

This article was prepared by Mahmoud Arif and Constantin-Adi Gavrilă. Picture any school in any community in the world, and you are sure to imagine a group of children learning and playing. Whenever there is interaction, there will always be room for conflict. How do children manage conflict? This question is difficult to answer, as…

What is Cab Rank Rule? The Four Bars (namely, England and Wales, Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland) have recently issued a joint statement on the cab rank rule. According to the statement, the cab rank rule mandates barristers not to discriminate between clients, and that they must take on any case provided that it is…

The idea of using insights from behavioural science to achieve desirable policy goals burst into popular consciousness with the publication of Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness (R Thaler and C Sunstein, Yale University Press, 2008.) It describes the appealing notion that people can be encouraged to make good choices by the way…

Secondary school students also have an important role to play in upholding the rule of law.   The idea of organising a mediation essay competition for secondary school students was mooted in 2019. Despite the covid pandemic, the Mediation Essay Competition 2020 was successfully organised by the Department of Justice, the Education Bureau, Rotary International…

In the famous story of Noah’s Ark, Noah questions God about how he will find the animals he has been instructed to put in the ark. God replies, ‘If you build it, they will come’. The consistent repetition of this quotation throughout history (think of Kevin Costner’s movie Field of Dreams ) has created something…

Dear Young Mediation Enthusiast, Thank you for writing to me again. Time really flies as my last letter to you was written ten months ago on 2 December 2021. It is most encouraging to hear that you have been doing mediation cases of different nature and you find the work as a family mediator most…

Mr Rimsky Yuen GBM SC JP was appointed as the Secretary for Justice of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government (“Hong Kong Government”) on 1 July 2012. Prior to July 2012, Rimsky practised as a barrister primarily in different areas of commercial law. Apart from acting as advocate in court or arbitral proceedings, he…

Effective inter-governmental relations among the constituent parts of the United Kingdom are essential in an era of increased devolution of powers, post-Brexit allocation of responsibility and contested narratives about the future of the (uncodified) UK constitution. Background One of the rather depressing aspects of the constitutional impasse in the UK is that inter-governmental relations (IGR)…