As I write this, I am looking across the Gulf of Aqaba at the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, near the place where the Egyptian border abuts Israel, south of the Israeli Red Sea port of Eilat. This morning’s BBC news tells us that Israel is on alert for IS attacks in the Sinai. The accompanying…

Cogniscenti (and readers of Ema Vidak-Gojkovic’s blog The UNCITRAL Convention on Enforcement of Conciliated Settlement Agreements – An Idea Whose Time Has Come?) will know that talks are ongoing in an attempt to see if it is possible to find a common system for the direct enforceability of agreements concluded in mediation. This is a…

Once I was informed by Nan Waller Burnett that her colleagues from the organization Mediators Beyond Borders International (MBB) were heading for Prague and that we might organize a meeting with them I did not hesitate a minute. For the work of this NGO is simply admirable. How to build more peace “able” world The…

In his recent posting for the Kluwer Arbitration Blog, Michael McIlwrath picks up on what I affectionately refer to as the NYC4M (New York Convention for Mediation) theme, that is the debate about whether an international convention for the enforcement and recognition of cross-border mediated settlement agreements would assist the development of, and promote the…

Recently my good friend Canon Andrew White (aka “the Vicar of Baghdad”, as he is the Anglican priest at St George’s Church, Baghdad) convened a meeting of religious certain leaders from Iraq and Israel, bringing together senior Iraqi Muslim and Israeli Jewish figures in Cyprus for several days of talks about peace. It was by…

This is the fourth and final posting in a series written by Tina Monberg, Irena Vanenkova, Michael Leathes and Nadja Alexander. In the last posting we discussed two factors that we think are critical to changing mindsets and increasing the systematic use of mediation in intractable, politically-charged and violent conflict. They are: 1. Bringing more…

This is the third in a series of four postings written by Irena Vanenkova, Tina Monberg, Nadja Alexander and Michael Leathes. The previous posts appeared on the 17th and 20th August on the Kluwer Mediation Blog. Previously we noted that the UN and world political leaders increasingly perceive mediation as vital for avoiding and resolving…

This is the second in a series of postings written by Michael Leathes, Tina Monberg and Irena Vanenkova and Nadja Alexander. The first post appeared on the Kluwer Mediation Blog on 17 August. Yesterday we put forward our view that achieving the promise of mediation in conflicts that threaten the stability of societies and economies…