Negotiation Law Blog

Many ADR bloggers (including me) have written extensively about the imposition of standards or the implementation of "best practices" in mediation. 

This week, Diane Levin at the Mediation Channel, hits the issue out of the ballpark, summaizing the arguments on both sides; providing solid resources for study and analysis; and, raising the important issues the mediation community will ignore to its detriment.

As Levin writes in To certify or not to certify:

One of the burning questions the U.S. mediation profession faces is a difficult one: is it time to professionalize the field and establish more formal mechanisms for credentialing?

As of today, the private practice of mediation in the United States is unlicensed and unregulated by the state. No public licensing boards  oversee or regulate the private practice of mediation. Barriers to entry into the profession are virtually non-existent; no degree, no experience, no training  is required before you order the business cards that proclaim you to be a mediator.

This has understandably caused consternation among the many members of the profession concerned with quality assurance. It certainly troubles me, a trainer of mediators. And it has prompted some, like my colleague Victoria Pynchon, to wonder out loud whether it’s time to license mediators to protect the public from the unscrupulous.

As the use of ADR has spread, numerous institutions, providers of mediation services, and membership associations for ADR professionals have endeavored to set standards of quality for mediators. In Massachusetts, for example, the Supreme Judicial Court promulgated qualification standards for mediators serving in court-connected programs (PDF) (which set the bar very low indeed, requiring only 30 hours of training for mediators together with only minimal mentoring and evaluation). The Florida Court System has also established standards for mediators (PDF) providing services in programs under its purview. Meanwhile, private companies such as Mediate.com have taken steps to establish their own credentialing system, or, like the Association for Conflict Resolution, are weighing credentialing or certification for their members. Arguments in favor of credentialing run the gamut, from the paternalistic (quality assurance protects the consumer) to the pragmatic (professionalization improves the ability of mediators to compete in the marketplace; credentialing will increase mediators’ professional credibility).

As more people enter the profession, and as more consumers use ADR services, market forces and the pressures within and outside our profession push us, reluctantly perhaps, but inexorably, toward professionalization.

Do continue reading Diane's post here; it's important, maybe even critical reading.

Here's my two sense (in bullet points so as not to bore you with prose).

• some of the most important mediations -- small claims matters and civil harassment disputes -- are being conducted at the bottom of the profession by law students and the barely trained
  • why are these "small" or "emotional" matters so important? 
    • in civil harassment disputes, people's lives are often at stake;
    • small claims matters may be the only contact "ordinary" citizens have with the "justice system," a system that depends upon an educated and sympathetic citizenry to support and fund;
    • considerable harm could flow both to individuals and to the institution of justice itself as the Courts divert greater numbers of people away from formal and public court proceedings into private, informal, unsupervised proceedings with people who are spottily trained not only in conflict resolution, but also in the alternative to ADR -- one's day in Court.
• the justice system which not only sanctions but promotes court-annexed mediation is lending its imprimatur to an alternative that can and too often is abusive, coercive, biased, secretive and unpatrolled
• the lack of "best practices" diminishes the respect people have for the mediation process, both the lawyers who are "referred" to it by judges ("ordered" by any other name) and those lawyers' clients who do not understand why they are being shuttled away from their day in court into a conference room with mediators who may or may not be qualified to render passing-grade services, let alone excellent ones.
• educational, training, and supervision requirements have not stifled innovation in that other secretive and unsupervised professional activity -- psychotherapy.  The potential for abuse in that relationship is even higher than the potential for harm caused by barely schooled and never supervised mediators.  Nevertheless, the potential for abuse to litigants, particularly unrepersented litigants in small claims and civil harassment actions is high.
• one day, someone will be murdered by an enraged spouse, family member or next door neighbor who mediated their civil harassment case to an agreement rather than a restraining order.  I hate to say this but think it inevitable.  It will not be mediation's fault.  But mediation will pay if it has not established standards for court-annexed mediators, standards that include mentoring and supervision in the early days of one's mediation practice in court programs. 

Those are my thoughts.  Diane's post contains many more, together with some great links to the thoughts of others on both sides of the debate.  Don't miss it.

Some people are so dangerous and some situations so volatile that restraining orders are of little use.  Consider this tragic tale of the courthouse shooting of a woman who had "secured restraining orders that prohibited [her former husband] from possessing or carrying any firearms, that ordered him to turn over his firearms to his lawyer, and that prohibited [him] from being 'within 100 yeards of any firearm' while in the presence of [his ex-wife] Eileen and [the couple's] children."  Zelig v. County of Los Angeles (2002) 27 Cal.4th 1112.  Here's the appellate court's summary of the facts:

Eileen and Harry separated in October 1993. Harry failed to comply with orders of the family court relating to spousal and child support, and Eileen sought redress in the family court on various occasions. Harry became verbally abusive toward Eileen. On at least three occasions prior to September 1, 1995, Eileen informed the bailiff in one department of the family court that she feared Harry and believed he might attack or kill her in the courthouse.

On at least one prior occasion, the bailiff searched Harry for weapons before permitting him to enter the courtroom. Eileen also previously had provided the bailiff and a judge in the family court with copies of letters and telephone messages in which Harry threatened to kill her. Eileen had secured restraining orders that prohibited Harry from possessing or carrying any firearms, that ordered him to turn over his firearms to his lawyer, and that prohibited Harry from being “within 100 yards of any firearm” while in the presence of Eileen and the children.

On September 1, 1995, Eileen appeared in department 27, one of the courtrooms hearing family law matters at the Central Civil Courthouse. Eileen and Harry were directed to proceed downstairs to department 1A. As she reached the second floor of the building, Harry retrieved a loaded .38-caliber revolver that had been concealed in his clothing and shot Eileen in the chest at point-blank range. Their daughter Lisa witnessed the shooting. Eileen died soon thereafter.

Power Cannot Protect Us

In my last post I posed the question whether a Civil Harassment Restraining Order is "better" for people who are living in fear of another than a mediated agreement between those people.  From the story of Henry Zelig and his family above, you can guess my own answer.  A restraining Order cannot protect us.  If we are not dealing with a crazed maniac (in which case we need to disengage and perhaps even hide rather than summoning our stalker to court) the parties' voluntary resolution of their dispute offers much greater protection for the future.

As lawyer, mediator, and author Ken Cloke writes in Conflict Revolution,

Power contests . . . produce winners and losers, destroy important relationships, and generate a great deal of 'collateral damage.'  Power also encourages corruption in those who use it, and blind obedience, resistance, and revolt in those it is used against.  Resort to power-based solutions, therefore stimulates future disputes and makes it nearly impossible to change without experiencing major conflicts.

Cloke thinks as little of rights-based solutions to conflicts as he does power-based solutions.  He writes,

[R]ights-based processes rest on bureaucracy, operate by control, and resolut in compliance . . . Rights-based approaches encourage alienation, resulting in personal cynicism, apathy and uncaring.  Neither prevents or transcends chronic conflicts, or seeks to dismantle them at their systemic source.

(you'll notice in the Gates-Crowley dust-up that "personal cynicism, apathy and uncaring" are the best the population is doing following President Obama's appeal to a rights-based analysis of the situation, i.e., that the matter reflects racism /* more than it does temperamental outbursts)

The better way?  Cloke suggests that both power- and rights-based means of dispute resolution have given way to a better way of resolving conflicts

based on interests, using informal problem-solving, facilitation, open dialogue, collaborative negotiation, and mediation.  Interests reflect not merely what people want, but the reasons why they want it.  Interest-based processes therefore do not require winners and losers, are able to prevent, reoslve, transform, and transcend conflicts at their chronic source, support collaborative, democratic relationships, and encourage systemic change.

You may be saying not only that that is quite an order, but it is a solution only for dewy-eyed optimists who do not understand the "real world."  I can only tell you what I told my civil harassment parties as they made the decision whether to participate in mediation or not. 

"Everyone," I said, "tells me that the other side will never see reason, that the matter cannot be settled, that the parties need a ruling from a Judge and an Order they can enforce against another.  And yet every time I mediate a dispute like this -- and I mean everytime -- the parties are able to settle their differences amongst themselves by way of agreement and the result is a far more satisfactory and durable solution for everyone."

But you don't need to take my word for it.  Download the Middle and High-School Peer Mediation materials and use the process yourself.  You'll be surprised at the results and happy you did.

__________________

*/  I do not mean to diminish the role race played in this dispute, simply that a rights-based race-conscious response by the President did nothing to resolve it.  As Cloke wisely notes in his Introduction:

[E]very conflict takes place not only between individuals, but in a context, culture, and environment, surrounded by social, economic, and political forces; inside a group or organization; contained by a system and structure; among a diverse community of people; at a particular moment in time on history; on a stage; against a backdrop; in a setting or milieu.

Because our history of slavery and racism is so shameful a part of our history, we too often either suppress its role in conflict entirely or raise it up as the primary focus of our attention.  Neither is "correct."  Hence the circles we continue to run in whenever race is part of the context in which conflict erupts.

I'm happy to see that Obama has asked Gates and Crowley up to the White House for a beer.

Breaking a longstanding tradition of ignoring racial conflict, Obama has officially invited Cambridge police officer James Crowley and Harvard professor Henry Louis "Skip" Gates, Jr., to the White House for a beer and a bit of conversation about the incident. Obama's hope is that the debacle can morph into a "teachable moment" for everyone, and be brought to a conclusion that will allow the nation to focus once again on providing health care to all its citizens. Latest news has it that Skip has accepted the offer. We're excited to see the transcript of that chat, if it's released.

This is just what Harvard law professor Robert Mnookin, the chair of Harvard’s Program on Negotiation, recommended.

The Wall Street Journal Law Blog in Gatesgate:  Might Mediation be the Answer, noted the Boston Globe's commentary that :

Pride seems like an insurmountable obstacle sometimes. On one hand, you have a black man who has withstood taunts from other blacks for working with The Man and achieving success in mainstream society. On the other hand, you’ve got an officer who is sworn to uphold civil society, dealing with, in his mind, someone who is being decidedly uncivil. How do you get both sides to admit they maybe went too far?

Responds Mnookin:

I would ask each is if they would find it valuable to have an opportunity to really explain to the other person their perspective, to really make it clear what their perspective is, and as part of that, would they be willing to take in the perspective of the other. . . I certainly think there is hope that professor Gates and this officer could sit down together and have a constructive conversation where they each came to understand better the perspective of the other — and themselves.

And if you think we don't all need the lesson the friendly White House beer should provide, check out the 72 comments to the WSJ Law Blog post - discouraging indeed.

Hat tip on the Wall Street Journal Law Blog post to twitter negot8or Jeff Gordon who blogs on negotiation at LicensingHandbook.com.

It's good to step into a small claims or limited jurisdiction court from time to time to see how ordinary people's disputes are resolved, usually without counsel. 

Yesterday, as I sat in the small claims department of a local branch court, I wondered why the one-hour court trial I was observing hadn't been resolved in mediation.  Both parties to the fender-bender resulting only in property damage admitted they "hadn't been looking" when one pulled out of a parking spot and the other backed into him. 

The damages didn't require an adversarial process either.  There were quotations for repair on both sides as well as estimates of the vehicle's fair market value.  It was plain that the plaintiff had used comps that weren't truly comparable -- luxury cars vs. his own stripped down model. 

I had to leave before the Court rendered its judgment but I was pretty sure the Plaintiff wasn't going to understand why he'd lost (the result I assumed).  He spoke the language poorly and had a weak grasp of the proceedings going on about him.  It is on occasions like this that I believe mediation is better able to deliver justice than the court is if you define justice as a fair result arising from a fair procedure that all parties understand and are capable of a meaningfully engagement with. 

Before the judgment was rendered, the clerk whispered in the Judges ear that the "mediator is here; with a trainee and a law student."  He took a break to tell the (unrepresented) civil harassment parties that "there is a mediator in Court willing to help you resolve your dispute without charge."  I introduced myself briefly, along with my "assistants" as the Judge told the assembled parties that it's difficult to obtain an injunction (burden of proof:  clear and convincing evidence) but a very bad result for any defendant against whom one is granted.  The Judge did a good job, I thought, in quickly instructing the parties on the "up" and "down" sides of using the adversarial process instead of mediation, assuring them all that they could return to him for a judgment if the matters didn't settle.

These are people, not lawyers, and people's disputes rarely fail to settle when they're able to tell their story in an atmosphere of hope and safety.  When their "opponent" listens to them respectfully for the first time ever.  When they don't feel as if the police officer or court official or social service agency is listening with only half their attention.  They speak quickly to me outside the courthouse door when trying to decide whether to use my free services or have the day in court they've already paid for -- filing fees and costs of service - never a small expense for the people who find themselves here, hopeful and afraid.  They thrust their documentary evidence at me in the hallway.  If they don't get it all in right now I may not listen to them later.  They are strident or trembling; self-righteous or humble, but none of them truly believe anyone is going to actually hear and understand their predicament.  

I suggest they try to resolve the matter by way of agreement.  I assure them that I will not permit them to feel unsafe; telling them they can ask for a break the very moment they begin to feel uncomfortable.   I will follow them out of the conference room and we will talk about what is troubling them right away.  No, now is not the time to tell their entire story but that time is near.  All we have to do is take the elevator up to the next floor where the ADR office and its single meeting room are located.  I assure them again that they can come back to the Court later that day if I cannot help them resolve their dispute themselves.  They are all of the firm belief that they will be back in court.  The other side is "lying," ruthless, malicious, and will will attempt to manipulate me, the mediator. 

Mediation "will never work," they say to a person.  And yet, the woman in the black suit is beginning to seem less threatening, more approachable, more hopeful, than the Judge in the polyester robe.

O.K., they agree.  They will give it a shot.  I'm so earnest, I sometimes feel that they do it for me as much as for themselves.  That's OK, they have no reason to hope yet.  It is enough that I do.  I am undeviating in my faith that when I call upon people's higher angels, they will respond.  I take pride in every individual willing to sit at a table across from their adversary and have a conversation.  Lawyers often won't do it.  Representatives of Fortune 500 corporations demur.  Nations refuse the offer.  Yet these people, nearly defenseless, are  brave enough to sit with the enemy and will, I know, also be wise enough, honest enough, and respectful enough, to take their destiny into their own hands and make a better decision in conversation with one another than any third-party "decider" possibly could.

Tomorrow:  the mediations.

The statutory basis for Civil Harassment Injunctive relief is here, along with at least one case holding that a single act of battery that occurred in the past and does not present a credible threat of future violence does not support the issuance of a civil harassment restraining order or injunction.

Here are some resources to assist individuals who believe they are victims of civil harassment:

How to Obtain a Civil Harassment Order (prepared by UCLA)

California Courts Self-Help Center:  Civil Harassment

County of Los Angeles (Long Beach) Pamphlet on Civil Harassment Orders

Amador County Superior Court Information on Civil Harassment Orders

Santa Clara County Superior Court Information on Civil Harassment Orders

Sacramento County Superior Court Information on Civil Harassment Orders

San Francisco County Superior Court Information on Civil Harassment Orders

Shasta County Superior Court Information on Civil Harassment Orders

Marin County Superior Court Information on Civil Harassment Orders

Fresno County Superior Court Information on Civil Harassment Orders

Los Angeles County Superior Court Information on Civil Harassment Orders

WomensLaw.org Information on Restraining Orders

From David Sugarman's Oregon Class Action Blog, Bombshell:  State of Minnesota Sues National Arbitration Forum.

The State of Minnesota filed a lawsuit against National Arbitration Forum, a leading arbitration provider, claiming that NAF is a front for debt collectors and their law firms and not an independent arbitration service.  Here’s a copy of the complaint–it’s long–for anyone who is interested.

For Sugarman's full post, click here.

Though the National Arbitration Forum focuses on the arbitration of disputes, it also administers mediations.  For information on its mediation services, click here.

At the close of the year, our good friend John DeGroote at Settlement Perspectives asked whether mediators' proposals had lost their utility.  Now that parties "know the mediator's proposal is coming," he wrote,

savvy negotiators angle for an advantageous impasse rather than a settlement. Compromise is no longer the goal of the mediation exercise; instead it becomes a play to the “neutral,” whose power to craft the mediation proposal will make her the real decisionmaker:

• In cases where the mediator’s proposal will be based on who will pay what, the parties — or worse yet, one party — will spend valuable time and effort constructing an impasse when, in the absence of a mediator’s proposal as a fallback, he might have actually achieved a compromise settlement; or

• In cases where the mediator’s proposal will be based on the value of the case, no one has an incentive to be candid with the mediator — so positions become more important than interests; or

• In cases where the parties aren’t sure what will drive the mediator’s proposal, they dig into their positions and hope for impasse — with the most likely result being a mediator’s proposal predicated on those positions.

Just yesterday, a prominent local IP litigator, trial lawyer and deal-maker Robert J. Rose of Sheldon Mak Rose & Anderson graced the IP ADR Blog with a guest post on the utility of mediators' proposals here.  As Rose notes:

A reluctant plaintiff will make a large jump if the money is really “on the table.”  Defendants will come up with money they otherwise deny having, if it means that the case is really over.  It also eliminates reactive devaluation.

For those who skipped social psychology in college, reactive devaluation is what every lawyer is taught in the first year of practice, if not earlier.  "If the other side wants it," said my first mentor, "you don't, even if it seems like a good idea to you."  With that admonition ringing in the ears of every litigator, the need for mediators is obvious.  Given the dangers cited by DeGroote, however, the mediator's proposal may now be simply another way to "game" the mediator. 

I have two short stories to illustrate the reason I re-direct the parties to bracketing when they ask me to make a mediator's proposal. But first, let me explain that I am one of those mediators who used my "proposal" option to put a number on the table I thought both parties would accept even though it would be a stretch for both of them.  I usually tested these assumptions in separate caucuses by asking each side "if they came down to $X would you come up to $Y."  When the numbers didn't overlap, I'd gauge how much pain there might be for both parties to bridge the gap, along with other entirely subjective opinions such as:

• how invested each side was in walking away with a settlement that day
• how firm each side was in their assertion that they would not go below or above a certain number
• whether either attorney needed help in bringing a little more reality to their clients before the parties would be ready to accept a proposal by the mediator; and,
• how much "street cred" I'd developed with the parties personally so that they'd accept my estimate of the settlement price-point even if they wouldn't accept their own attorney's advice /*

The first time I felt manipulated into making a mediator's proposal that wasn't the best both parties could do occurred at the close of a particularly fractious commercial mediation. In the presumed Zone of Potential Agreement , my proposal was high on the side of the Plaintiff because I felt that the defendant had more "give" than did Plaintiff's counsel. 

I made my proposal and both sides accepted.  When I walked into the defense caucus to tell counsel that he had a deal, however, I was met with a burst of laughter, the clapping of hands and the following statement:  "I was prepared to take less; that's a great deal.  Thanks so much."

Everyone Lies to the Mediator

That was the hardest lesson I'd had to date in the truism that EVERYONE lies to the mediator.  You do not get to lie to the mediator twice, however, so I caution anyone who's feeling that she put one over on the mediator either to keep it to herself or never to hire that mediator again.

Still, I took a lesson from the attorney's merriment.  I realized immediately that he was not the only, nor the first, attorney to manipulate me.   He was simply the only one to let me know it.  I don't like being manipulated.  But that's what litigators are trained to do.  We call it "persuasion."  Still, I didn't like the look of my mediator's finger prints on that settlement, one that now appeared unduly influenced by my credulity.  

So that's reason no. 1 -- an extremely strong reason no. 1 - why I don't' like to make mediator's proposals and why counsel might ask themselves whether they want to continue asking for them.

"If We'd Wanted a Third Party to Decide, We Would Have Arbitrated This Case"

The quote above is from an attorney who represented one of the parties in the largest and most sophisticated commercial case I've mediated to date. We were at the end of day two and the parties -- who had traveled great distances to meet in a neutral city -- were nowhere near a landing point.  I was a sufficiently experienced mediator to land the case, but new enough to feel as if I'd run out of options when I suggested making a mediator's proposal.  

"I didn't hire you to have a third party make my decision for me," said counsel.  "If you want to get the parties closer together, why don't you suggest a bracket?" (for a explanation of bracketing, see my colleague Ralph Williams' article Introducing Deal Points - the Basics.)

I'd used brackets as a means of testing the parties' true distance before that day ("if he went to $X would you come down to $Y?") but I'd never made a mediator's proposal that was a bracket, i.e., "I suggest that the defendant put $X on the table if plaintiff will reduce its demand to $Y."

Although we didn't settle the case that day with a bracket (it took four full months of follow-up telephone negotiations to do that) I took counsel's point to heart.  The parties don't hire me to make a decision for them.  They're much happier when they get to make the decision themselves.  Even though the parties do decide whether to accept the mediator's proposal, it hasn't come to them as the result of their own hard work.  That being the case, the agreement reached is far less durable (subject to failure based upon nit-picking deal points after the agreement has been reached in principle) and far less satisfying than one achieved without the mediator's thumb on the scale.

I decided to stop making mediators' proposals more than two years ago.  In all that time, however, I've never refused to make one.  Rather, I've suggested alternative ways of achieving resolution, at least one of more of which settled the case in every case where the parties asked for a mediator's proposal.  

I'd like to hear thoughts on these points -- manipulation and party satisfaction -- from my litigator readers as well as my mediator readers.

More mediator thoughts on mediator proposals here:  The Mediator's Proposal at Mediation Meditations.

________________

*  I say this with the following caveat:  I would never attempt to influence clients to do something other than what their attorneys advise.  From time to time, however, the attorney needs to make the mediator the "bad cop" in the negotiation so that the client will not feel as if the attorney is no longer fighting for his interests.  I only play "bad cop" with the attorney's advice and consent.  My job is to get the settlement concluded making the attorneys look good, not bad.

This just in from 11 Stone Buildings on the Resolution of Commercial Insurance and Reinsurance Disputes - A Move Towards Mediation in the London Market?

David Stern's latest bulletin on insurance and mediation is now available to download on the link above.  It aims to set out how mediation is perceived, what drivers there are for change and how these drivers are likely to impact the use of mediation as a dispute resolution technique for London Market disputes in the future.

If you would like more details of our specialist insurance mediation service, please contact Michael Couling on 020 7831 6381 or couling@11sb.com.

David would be glad to present this bulletin as an in-house seminar. Please contact Chambers if you would like further information on this or any of our forthcoming seminars.

For more information on the barristers at 11 Stone Buildings who deal with Insurance and Reinsurance please visit Insurance and Reinsurance.

To sign up for our bulletins and news alerts click on Newsletter Sign Up.

Though I mediated several big ticket London coverage cases in that fair city while defending environmental insurance claims cases (primarily against the petroleum companies my husband was then representing) the power of most settlement discussions was in the hands of the lead negotiator for Equitas - a master deal-maker who left most mediators in the dust.

I believe that the quality of mediation practice has greatly improved since that time (late 1990's, early 21st century) primarily as a result of attorneys entering the practice (with all due deference to my retired Judge mediator friends).  I'm happy to see London giving mediation a higher profile.

By Kenneth Cloke

The Copenhagen Climate Change Conference -- What You Can Do

In December 2009, delegates from around the world will meet in Copenhagen, Denmark for the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP 15) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).  Copenhagen will provide a critical opportunity for the world’s nations to reach a comprehensive agreement before the commitments set out in the Kyoto Protocol expire in 2012. 
A recent report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change points to COP 15 as the focal point for decisive action by the world’s nations, in the effort to avoid a growing number of potentially disastrous environmental changes. 

Yet a discussion of conflict prevention and resolution mechanisms is missing from the COP 15 Provisional Agenda, and the range and power of environmental mediation and similar techniques is not widely understood or agreed to by the parties who will be expected to sign the agreement that will replace the one adopted in Kyoto. 

Article 14 of the 1992 UNFCCC negotiated in New York and Rio de Janeiro, which is reaffirmed in Article 19 of the Kyoto Protocol, states:

“… in the event of a dispute between any two or more Parties concerning the interpretation or application of the Convention, the Parties concerned shall seek a settlement of the dispute through negotiation or any other peaceful means of their own choice.” 

However, the International Crisis Group, a nonpartisan conflict analysis advisory organization, has pointed out:

“[A] key challenge today is to better understand the relationship between climate change, environmental degradation and conflict and to effectively manage associated risks through appropriate conflict prevention and resolution mechanisms.” 

It is clear to experienced conflict resolution professionals everywhere that conflict prevention and resolution mechanisms need to be a core part of the Copenhagen climate change negotiations and an indispensible element in international efforts to implement them afterwards.  Without these mechanisms, global solutions will be much more difficult to negotiate and implement effectively and the time available to us to implement effective solutions is running out. 

It is therefore incumbent on conflict resolution professionals to join together, travel to Copenhagen if possible, and if not, initiate a set of local and international dialogues on how conflict resolution methods can be used to effectively resolve climate change disputes. 

What You Can Do

MBB has been provisionally accepted as an observer organization at the COP 15 meeting, and to my knowledge is the only mediation organization that will be present. We have a simple message: we want to convince the delegates that mediation is a viable option for resolving climate change disputes. 

To achieve this goal, we will bring mediators from around the world to Copenhagen to inform delegates of the advantages of conflict resolution in resolving environmental and climate change issues, and encourage and support all parties in using it. 

For those who are unable to attend the meeting, we will need justifications, explanatory materials and resources on environmental dispute resolution that can be passed out to delegates, and will need lots of local support.  Here, for example, are ten things you can do: 

1. Come to Copenhagen and participate in the Mediation Seminar on December 10 and 11;
2. Attend the COP 15 meeting as a MBB Observer and speak directly to national representatives who are attending the Conference;
3. Email delegates and opinion leaders in your area and encourage them to support ADR;
4. Help fund travel scholarships for mediators in countries affected by climate change who do not have the resources to come to Copenhagen;
5. Contribute blogs to the Forum, a MBB website where people can discuss environmental issues;
6. Contribute articles on environmental conflicts and mediation to “Conflictpedia;”
7. Film brief interviews with knowledgeable people in your area on the value of mediating climate change issues to put on Youtube and the MBB webpage;
8. Collect training materials, stories and case studies on environmental mediation, especially regarding climate change;
9. Contribute names and contact information to a referral list of mediators around the world who are able to mediate environmental disputes;
10. Form an MBB Chapter in your area and help organize dialogues on climate change and ways of resolving environmental conflicts. 

Whether you can attend or not, Copenhagen represents a unique opportunity for mediators to contribute to solving global environmental problems.  The time to act is now.  Please join us and help save the planet. 

Ken Cloke
President,
Mediators Beyond Borders