Jeff Aresty and I just completed a presentation on Self-Sovereign Identity and ODR for the CyberSpace 2020 conference. The conference as organized by the Faculty of Law and Faculty of Social Studies at Masaryk University, in Brno, the Czech Republic, in cooperation with the European Academy of Law and ICT.
This week Ana Goncalves and I have begun two editions of the ODR Certification Course for which HSI partners with ICFML – one with participants from Africa, Latin America, the USA, and Europe, and one with participants from across Australia. The next edition will begin in February, 2021 – for more information, contact me directly.
On Friday, November 6, at 5pm Eastern, I will host a web session for CyberWeek 2020 – the subject will be “Creating a Code of Disclosure for EMediation. I’ll post a video earlier in the week to accompany the live session. The CyberWeek 2020 web site is here: CyberWeek2020
I just completed a delightful panel discussion with my colleagues, Mireze Philippe, Mohamed Abdel-Wahab, Colin Rule, and Jaya Sharma – the discussion was part of a series of sessions for the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators North American branch.
HSI, the company that is basically the practice home for Julia Morelli and Daniel Rainey is a signatory to the Carbon Emmission Pledge – the “Green Pledge.” Although the pledge specifically refers to mediation, HSI and I are committed to honoring the pledge in all of the work we do (mediation, facilitation, arbitration, peacebuilding, etc.). The pledge was presented by the World Mediators Alliance on Climate Change – the website for the Alliance and the pledge sign-up page can be found at GREEN PLEDGE.
During this week I will be participating in the Mediation 20/20 online conference, hosted by Mediate.com. On Thursday evening I will join my colleagues who contributed to the 7 Keys book for an open “happy hour,” and on Friday I will participate in a roundtable discussion on the topic of where the field should be headed. It sort of reminds me, for those who are old enough and enough into social trivia, of the “Whither Are We Drifting?” essay that Dobie Gillis was assigned in high school.
HSI and ICFML will participate in the ABA Dispute Resolution Tech Expo, the first online exposition hosted by the ABA. Vendors and service providers in several catagories will offer video introductions to their services or products, along with the opportunity to schedule live demonstrations or consultations. HSI and ICFML will be highlighting the EMediation Certification course we have been offering internationally for the past year.
The newly published Singapore International Dispute Resolution Academy (SIDRA) International Dispute Resolution Survey: 2020 Final Report comments on the issue of standards in international mediation.
Article 5(1)(e) of the Singapore Convention sets forth that enforcement may be refused if there was a serious breach by the mediator of standards applicable to the mediator or mediation, without which the settlement agreement would not have been signed. Further, Article 5(1)(f) specifies that enforcement may be refused if the mediator failed to disclose information that gives rise to justifiable doubts regarding the mediator’s impartiality or independence and had the mediator disclosed such information, the parties would not have signed the settlement agreement.
The Singapore Convention neither contains substantive ethical obligations applicable to mediators nor does it make any reference as to how to determine such standards. (P. 66) Available at: http://mediationblog.kluwerarbitration.com/2020/08/16/what-users-say-about-technology-in-mediation-2020-sidra-survey-part-3/
This is the same issue that Ana Goncalves, Francois Bogacz, and I highlighted at the roll-out of the Singapore Convention, in Singapore earlier this year, and again in an article in the International Journal of Online Dispute Resolution (IJODR), and again in the recent Seven Keys book published by Mediate.com.
The Standards work being done by the Singapore International Mediation Institute (SIMI), the International Mediation Institute (IMI), the US American Bar Association (ABA), the National Center for Technology and Dispute Resolution (NCTDR), and the International Council for Online Dispute Resolution (ICODR) all bear similarities and even have some crossover – some of my colleagues and I are involved in all of the above efforts.
At the risk of flogging a dead issue, the approach that Ana, Francois, and I have suggested is the creation of a code of disclosure for mediators, domestically and internationally. For years mediation scholars and practitioners have commented on the fractured nature of mediation around the world. Given this reality, it would be a long, uphill, Sisyphean struggle to create a universal code of conduct or set of standards for international mediation. However, creating a set of categories that would constitute an adequate disclosure of process and approach that parties could understand and accept is not so daunting.
We should, as a “field,” get on with it.
Mediate.com has published the Seven Keys book online – to access all of the chapters, including two that I co-authored, click HERE
To directly access Key 4 (Code of Disclosure) text and video interview, click HERE
To directly access Key 5 (Full Advantage of ODR) text and video interview, click HERE
