International Mediation Solution
GLEAMED can provide international mediation and also mediation awareness training courses tailored to the particular circumstances of the dispute or to the requirements of the trainees.
Introduction
We have Associate Mediators available in Florida, USA, and India. Examples of our international mediation activity include running a full day seminar with Judges from Jiangsu, China, in conjunction with University of Essex, to compare the use of mediation in UK and China and participating in a one-day seminar with senior Romanian mediators, in conjunction with the Slynn Foundation, in London, hosting a three-day seminar with Serbian Judges for the FCO and holding a morning seminar with Bulgarian Judges on behalf of the Civil Mediation Council. We have also handled international mediations, for example between clients in Norway and UK and in one case, with participants from Australia, South Africa, Portugal and South Essex.
A proposal to use mediation can come from anyone involved in the dispute, including any legal representative, but as mediation is voluntary, all those concerned must be willing to participation in the process. However, if one side in a dispute is found by the Court to have unreasonably declined an offer of mediation, this may well be reflected in an adverse award of costs, even if the party concerned wins the case.
As a Nation, we trade across international borders, set up family relationships with people from other countries and are concerned by conflict and political instability at flashpoints around the world. Mediation can help in all these areas.
The EU has reached agreement on consumer protection arrangements for handling cross-border disputes, which are now being implemented by Member States, based on a Union–wide on-line dispute resolution system. Nowadays, it is often possible to mediate commercial, family and workplace disputes on-line using a combination of video-conferencing, Skype, Zoom, telephone, email and messaging technologies.
International organisations such as the UN use mediation to help resolve conflicts, develop transitional justice arrangements and agree development priorities in newly stabilised States. GLEAMED has mediators with experience of working in these areas.
To resolve a conflict, mediators need to address the underlying issues and the interests of the parties to find win-win outcomes rather than seeking ways to impose an unacceptable win-lose solution. This is especially relevant where conflict is being used quite deliberately as an instrument for change, especially for political, organisational, personal or other social engineering purposes. In these cases, resolution occurs by listening to and providing opportunities for meeting the needs of all disputants, and by finding acceptable ways of adequately addressing their interests so that each party is satisfied with the outcome.
While ‘conflict resolution’ engages conflict once it has already started, ‘conflict prevention’ aims to reconcile disputants before their disagreements lead to verbal, physical, or legal fighting or even violence. Mediators can be particularly helpful when coalitions, consortia or other groupings are coming together, and each participant is concerned to protect their own interests whilst having insufficient regard for those of others and also potentially unrealistic expectations of the benefits of their collaboration. A neutral third party (the mediator) can delve into these areas with each participant and help them to identify their mutual benefits and constraints, leading to realistic expectations, clarity of roles and responsibilities and a framework/contract/governance regime that embeds arrangements they can all agree to.
Conflict or dispute management is useful for dealing with a ‘flare-up’ with its origins in a long-running underlying dispute that neither side is yet ready to settle. Over time, the precedents and arrangements arrived at in settling these local ‘flare-ups’ can contribute to the development of a wider settlement for part of or even the entire underlying dispute. However, whilst mediators will need to keep the underlying issues in mind when dealing with a ‘flare-up’, their focus must remain on resolving the immediate dispute so as to prevent the situation getting worse. In the process, they can, of course, take any opportunity to address the wider issues but must remain alert to the danger of getting diverted from achieving a speedy resolution of the immediate problem in the process.
Our mediators work on conflict and dispute resolution in many arenas – internationally, commercially, in the workplace, in families and in the community. In doing so, they remain very conscious of the need to understand the local cultural context when drawing on their extensive experience as mediators to facilitate the development of settlements, including the arrangements for their implementation, so that they meet the expectations of and are acceptable to all the parties concerned.
We always provide a full quotation, so that you know exactly what the costs will be before you enter the mediation process. Fees will depend on the types of mediation concerned but expenses are likely to be somewhat higher, to take account of travel, communications, translation/interpretation, and the other costs associated with international work.
Conflict resolution activities, including training, are subject to consideration and negotiation on a case-by-case basis. Fees will be lower when mediation and/or training takes place in the UK or another neutral location. Otherwise, fees and expenses will reflect the circumstances concerned.
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Greater London and East Anglia Mediation is a Regional Mediation Provider covering Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, and the adjacent London Boroughs, offering Civil, Commercial, Family, Workplace and Community mediation services.