Focus on Mediation, Conflict Resolution and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR).
Bill Reed. "A respectful way to resolve disputes." McClatchy - Tribune Business News 15 October2008
In a first for the Pikes Peak area, local mediators are using the day to offer a free conference to teach conflict resolution skills as well as free two-hour mediation sessions to try to resolve disputes among family members, or neighbors, or co-workers, or anyone else who is seething with hatred.
David Czurak. "No disputing new venture." Grand Rapids Business Journal, November 24, 2008, 6.
Grand Valley Metro Council is thinking of creating a mediation center that would resolve disputes between local governments instead of having to take legal action to settle a disagreement.
James F Smith. "Iraq latest crucible for Harvard mediation :Negotiations solve tribal disputes." Boston Globe, November 9, 2009,
The Boston area has become a global hub for teach ing conflict resolution theory and practice for uses in law, diplomacy, and business in farflung places. No wonder that when the State Department wanted to encourage Iraq to move toward a culture of mediation and away from war, it turned to Conflict Management Group, or CMG, the nonprofit consulting firm launched by Fisher in Cambridge in 1984 that is now part of the international development and relief group Mercy Corps.
James F Smith. "Iraqi foes give mediation a chance :UMass scholar at center of talks on Kirkuk." Boston Globe, November 19, 2009,
With a push from a University of Massachusetts at Boston professor, local and national Iraqi legislators are meeting today in Baghdad to defuse explosive disputes in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, where ethnic and political conflicts threaten to derail Iraq's halting progress toward a working democracy.
SARA LIPKA. "Discipline Goes on Trial at Colleges." The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 27, 2009, A1,A24+.
Conduct officers have been moving away from the legalistic disciplinary systems that colleges built in the latter half of the 20th century on the belief that they'd lose lawsuits without them. Confident now that judges won't expect those systems to conform to the rules of criminal procedure, colleges are making hearings less like trials, and more frequently using mediation and similar techniques to settle disputes.
Scott Campbell. "After a Decade, Lawyers Remain Supportive of Mediation." The State Journal, February 27, 2009, 28.
According to the National Center for State Courts, the average time to resolve an employer dispute by arbitration or mediation is 104 days, and the average cost of resolution is $870.
Yigal Schleifer. "In Turkey, a lone peacemaker ends many blood feuds." The Christian Science Monitor, June 2, 2008,
Inside Sanli's jacket pocket is a stack of papers bound with a rubber band and filled with names of people he has helped - 446 blood feuds ended since he gave up butchering a decade ago, by his estimate.
"Commentary: Well-earned kudos for an ADR pioneer." The Daily Record, November 19, 2007,
Professor Wolf is only the second recipient of this award -- the first being Chief Judge Bell himself, whose vision and accomplishments in promoting the use of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) in the judiciary, schools, government and communities were memorialized in the creation of the award by the Maryland State Bar Association's ADR Section in 2006. Through the Center for Dispute Resolution at the University of Maryland School of Law (C-DRUM), which he founded, he has convened, in conjunction with the law school's Law and Health Care program, national conferences to explore across different disciplines the use of ADR to resolve health care disputes.
"International: The discreet charms of the international go-between; Conflict resolution." The Economist, July 5, 2008.
A new kind of international mediator can bring an end to the age-old world of conflict resolution. For as the nature of the world's conflicts has changed in the past decade or so, the demand for a new type of mediator has grown too. Many contemporary conflicts involve insurgents, secessionists or even "resource-warriors. Rival politicians can be brought into open conflict by elections, such as in Kenya, or now Zimbabwe. The new kinds of disputes involve non-traditional parties such as international mining or oil companies pitched against indigenous people, as well as national governments tackling more established terrorist groups. The UN might, at best, offer some bureaucratic and political clout, but it is also big, cumbersome and leaky. In its place, the new mediators operate on a much smaller scale and offer discretion, secrecy and flexibility.
Anonymous, . "A legacy of war and peace." Jewish Advocate, January 18, 2008,
[George W. Bush]'s newfound interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may be, at least in part, an attempt to salvage a tarnished presidential legacy But his previous inaction came at the urging of top advisers who saw the failed Camp David accord, the subsequent Intifada, and Hamas' rise to power as reasons to abstain. Coupled with the Bush administration's own wartime concerns and policies against speaking with terrorist organizations, the U.S. remained on the outside looking in.
In four months' time, when Bush is scheduled to return to Israel, it is likely that the Democrats and Republicans will have announced their nominees for president and Election 2008 will be seriously heating up in the U.S. Who, then, will care what Bush has to say? For now, the president has intensified pressure on Olmert and Abbas, who have both said they hope to have a peace deal completed before Bush leaves office at the end of 2008.
Anonymous, . "HUNTER SPENCE, ALLY PAWOL & ETHEN PERKINS." Eugene Weekly, December 11, 2008,
At 8:30 am on a recent Wednesday, Adams Elementary fourth-graders and trained peer mediators Hunter Spence and Ally Pawol got air time on the school intercom to offer fellow students a few tips on conflict resolution.
Anonymous, . "It's Not the Settlements." Jewish Exponent, June 4, 2009,
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was astonishingly honest in admitting this inertia while visiting Washington last week. "We can't talk to the Arabs" about taking small confidence-building steps toward Israel "until Israel agrees to freeze settlements and recognize the two-state solution," Abbas told The Washington Post. "Until then we can't talk to anyone," he said, implying that negotiations with Israel were also off-limits until Jerusalem complies.
[Obama] - however determined he is to define a new path in the Middle East - is sending the wrong message. As Jackson Diehl, the Post editor who sat down with Abbas, put it: In shifting the focus to Israel, Obama "has revived a long-dormant Palestinian fantasy: that the United States will simply force Israel to make critical concessions, whether or not its democratic government agrees, while Arabs passively watch and applaud."
Anonymous, . "Parental court talks fail to resolve conflict or contact issues." Community Care, November 29, 2007, 7.
The study, by East Anglia University's Liz Trinder and Joanne Kellett, found that the conciliation process in court provided a framework for contact but did not help separated parents to work together. Only a quarter of cases were categorised as "settled and moving on" and half were "settled but conflicted". It found that, for most cases, the relationships between parents were "competitive or non-existent, trust was low and conflict was high".
Bard, M.. "Settlement freeze? OK...but what next?" Jewish News, June 4, 2009,
WASHINGTON - Despite more than six decades of historical evidence show- ing that settlements have nothing to do with peace between Israel and the Arabs, including the Gaza disengagement, Pres- ident Obama has called on Israel to freeze settlements. Fair enough; Israel agreed to this step as part of the "road map" peace plan, and everyone outside (and some inside) Israel has been clamoring for such a policy.
Before deciding, the president should consider that the secret to the settlement movement's success has been the Palestinians' refusal to accept Israeli peace overtures and their failure to fulfill the commitments in their signed agreements. Before Israel offered the Palestinians autonomy in 1978-79, 6,000 Jews lived in the disputed territories. Had the Palestinians accepted even that admittedly limited proposal, the Palestinians undoubtedly would have had a state within a few years and no more Jews would have moved to the territories. Instead, by the time of the Oslo accords in 1993, 130,000 Jews were living there.
Second, must Israel dismantle cities such as Ma'ale Adumim with a population comparable to Annapolis, Md.? Most Israelis believe the settlement blocs with roughly 70 percent of the settlers should be incorporated into Israel. Is President Obama prepared to support this? If so, that is an endorsement of President George W. Bush's 2004 letter to Ariel Sharon acknowledging that future borders must take into account demographic changes since 1967.
Baroud, R.. "The Syria-Israel peace gambit." The Arab American News, September 20, 2008,
Whether the report is fully, partially or not at all accurate, the fact remains that Israel's key objective in engaging Syria is to further isolate Hamas and to deny its leadership safe haven. Syria opened its doors to several Palestinian factions, which have operated politically with a degree of unison, following the September 1993 Oslo Accords. The relationship between Syria and Hamas in particular was often scrutinized as a Syrian bargaining chip in any future negotiations with Israel over the fate of the Golan. It is no secret that Israel will not transfer the Golan back to its rightful owner if Hamas and other Palestinian groups continue to use Damascus as their headquarters, a platform of political freedom and a degree of legitimacy.
This is an issue that even Hamas itself doesnlt seem to be concerned with, at least at the moment, for it's equally understood that Israel is not serious about its negotiations with Syria, arid that the whole affair is a political manoeuvre aimed at disturbing the Syria-Iran alliance, cutting off the supposed Hizbullah weapon supply route, and further de-legitimizing Hamas, while propping up its Palestinian rivals. Israel is "engaging" Syria because it's simply running out of options.
It is clear that neither Israel nor Syria is anticipating a "breakthrough" anytime soon. For now, talking is an end in itself. Concurrently, Israel wishes to woo Syria to break with Hamas and other Palestinian groups, break with Iran and, at least, twist Hizbullah's arm in Lebanon. Syria, on the other hand, knows well that indirect talks with Israel are an unmatched act of political validation in the West, enough to lessen U.S. threats, win France's friendship, and appear in a positive light internationally.
Chan, K., X. Huang, and P. Ng. "Managers' conflict management styles and employee attitudinal outcomes: The mediating role of trust." Asia Pacific Journal of Management 25, no. 2 (June 1, 2008): 277-295.
This study examines the mediating effects of trust on the relationships between manager's conflict management styles (CMS) and employee attitudinal outcomes, as well as identifies the potential deviations in the areas of CMS and trust from the west in Chinese culture. One hundred sixty-nine employees in Guangzhou of China participated. As predicted, Integrating CMS of managers is found significantly correlated to trust and subordinates' job satisfaction and turnover intention. Trust fully mediates the link between Integrating CMS and subordinates attitudinal outcomes. Results also support the expectations concerning the deviations on the impacts of the uncooperative CMS on subordinates under Chinese culture. Discussion and implications are presented.
Cortiella, C.. "Resolving Disagreements with a Mediation Meeting." The Exceptional Parent, July 1, 2008, 57.
Federal special education law-from 1975's Education for All Handicapped Children Act (Public Law 94-142) through today's Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA 2004)-has always recognized that the complex process of planning and implementing special education programs for students with disabilities might lead to disagreernents between schools and families. The mediation agreement must include the following: a description of the agreement, a statement that all discussions that occurred during the mediation process are kept confidential and may not be used as evidence in any due process hearing or civil proceeding that occurs later, Signatures of both the parent and a representative of the school district who has legally binding authority, and a statement that the agreement is enforceable in state or federal district court.
Eitan, R.. "Carter - he came, he saw ... but what then?" Washington Jewish Week, April 24, 2008,
"There's no question that both the Arab world and Hamas would accept Israel's right to live in peace within the 1967 borders," [Jimmy Carter] said. "We believe that the problem is not that I met with Hamas in Syria. The problem is that Israel and the United States refuse to meet with these people who must be involved."
[Khaled Meshaal], moreover, made clear in a news conference after Carter's address that Hamas would not recognize Israel even if a Palestinian state were founded in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. A spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who had declined to meet Carter for fear of being seen as negotiating with Hamas, said that Jerusalem "sees no change in Hamas' extremist positions."
"The United States is not going to deal with Hamas, and we certainly told President Carter that we did not think that meeting with Hamas was going to help the Palestinians," secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday. "We wanted to make sure there would be no confusion and there would be no sense that Hamas was somehow a party to peace negotiations which Abu Mazen [[Mahmoud Abbas]] has undertaken with the Israeli prime minister."
Fey, M., and K. Ramsay. "Mechanism design goes to war: peaceful outcomes with interdependent and correlated types." Review of Economic Design 13, no. 3 (September 1, 2009): 233-250.
In this paper, we consider the possibility of identifying peaceful mechanisms such as bargaining protocols, international institutions, or norms that can enable countries to settle disputes in the absence of binding contracts. In particular, we are interested in the existence of mechanisms with zero probability of war. Here, we focus on situations where the countries' payoffs to war are interdependent or correlated and where efficient settlements are not required but subsidies are unavailable. Most importantly, countries can choose to go to war at any time and can use information learned from the negotiation process in making this choice. We characterize the conditions under which no peaceful mechanisms exist and discuss how weakening our war consistency condition can change this result.
Gálvez, R.. "Centro de Resolución de Disputas ofrece solución a sus problemas." La Prensa, August 13, 2008,
A veces los miembros de una familia también se ven involucrados en un desacuerdo. "Una vez sucedió el deceso de una madre, los hijos estaban llenos de rencores unos contra otros y no había común acuerdo para repartir las cosas materiales. Al final del programa por medio de mediadores, todos se abrazaban y lloraban. Además de presentar a nuevos miembros de la familia. Y los pequeñines jugaban ajenos a todo problema", platica SitzCastillo.
Por su parte Rosalie Rodríguez, quien es mediadora en este programa, opina que lo hace con agrado y paciencia, pues en ocasiones los argumentos se tornan delicados. "A veces ellos vienen muy molestos, es difícil calmarlos, pero estamos entrenados para estas situaciones y me encanta mi función, lo hago con mucho agrado".
Golann, D.. "Nearing the Finish Line: Dealing With Impasse in Commercial Mediation." Dispute Resolution Magazine, January 1, 2009, 4-10.
The simplest way to feel out parties about reciprocal concessions is to ask What if?; as in, What if I could get them to come down $200,000 ... if I could get that much movement, could you make a deal at that point ? Or, Let's say I could get them to drop that far what do you think you could do in response? The what if phrasing suggests that the other side is resisting the idea of conceding, reducing the listener's tendency to devalue the potential concession. If parties are at, say, $80,000 and $200,000, a mediator might say, "Can we agree that we will bargain from this point on between 120 and 150?" This is the practical equivalent of parties making simultaneous jumps, but it is sometimes psychologically easier for litigants to accept, because each side can tell itself that it has agreed only to go as far as the specific number and that most of the concessions from that point on will have to be made by the other. In this format, disputants agree that during a certain time period, say from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. one afternoon, all the attorneys and decision makers will be at a telephone or computer, ready to receive a call or email from you.
Joseph, P., and L. Zicklin. "A 'show-me' policy for a two-state solution." Jewish News, June 4, 2009,
NEW YORK - In his speech at the AIPAC policy conference in May, Vice President Joe Biden described the U.S. position regarding the Middle East peace process as "a show-me deal." In other words, it is no longer enough for Israel, the Palestinians, and the Arab states to offer up positive rhetoric followed by inaction on their respective obligations.
A pro-Israel stalwart throughout his many years in the Senate, Biden understands that without concrete steps toward ending the conflict, threats against Israel will increase and opportunities to secure Israel's future as a Jewish, democratic state will diminish. President Obama also understands this - and that now is the time for action.
Obama reiterated his determination to achieve a two-state solution based on the kind of "show-me" policy outlined by Biden. After his meeting with [Benjamin Netanyahu], the president said: "There is no reason why we should not seize this opportunity and this moment for all the parties concerned to take seriously those obligations and to move for- ward in a way that assures Israel's security, that stops the terrorist attacks that have been such a source of pain and hardship, and that we can stop rocket attacks on Israel, but that also allows Palestinians to govern themselves as an independent state that allows economic development to take place, that allows them to make serious progress in meeting the aspirations of their people. And I am confident that in the days, weeks, and months to come that we are going to be able to make progress on that issue."
Katz, D.. "Mediation-A Judge's Views on Judicially Monitored Settlement Conferences." Litigation, July 1, 2009, 3-4,59-60.
When he was asked how many settlements he did annually, he responded, "not many!" My belief in judge-monitored settlement conferences (I use the terms "mediations" and "settlement conferences" interchangeably) may be born out of my years spent in private practice of the law. After more than two days of hearing evidence, including several expert witnesses, a settlement was crafted allowing kosher foods to be served to this non-Jewish, Christian sect, and permitting private religious services in a designated room or in the prisoner's cell by audiotape or CD.
Klein, C., and A. Klein. "Alternative Dispute Resolution Part 2: Mediation." Nurse Practitioner 33, no. 2 (February 1, 2008): 13.
In the second article in a four-part series, Klein discusses mediation, the most common form of alternative dispute resolution. In mediation, an impartial third party also known as a 'neutra,' trained in mediation skills will help the disputing parties negotiate and arrive at a resolution agreeable to all.
Latifi, S.. "Mediate a Dispute." Psychology Today, January 1, 2009, 26.
Let both parties share their perceptions and desires in front of each other. * Set ground rules.
Love, L., and S. Sterk. "Leaving More Than Money: Mediation Clauses in Estate Planning Documents." Washington and Lee Law Review 65, no. 2 (April 1, 2008): 539-584.
The presence of a mediation clause in estate planning documents can avoid the zero-sum, winner-loser aspects of litigation as a mechanism for dispute resolution and also avoid the havoc that an adversarial process can wreak on relationships. Estate planners have been less proactive about drafting wills to include mediation clauses that would anticipate estate disputes and channel them away from litigation. Mediation clauses in wills are no panacea. They are of little value to testators who exalt control over estate assets above all other concerns, and they are unlikely to bind disappointed family members whose primary claim is against the will instead of under the will. Nevertheless, compared to other alternatives, frequently employed by estates lawyers, mediation clauses present significant potential for reducing estates litigation, with its attendant financial and emotional costs.
Markey, E.. "Dialogues aim to foster healing within church." National Catholic Reporter, January 25, 2008, 16.
Last year, in Boston-the city that was at the epicenter of the clergy sexual abuse scandal and its cover-up by the Catholic hierarchy - the Paulist Center began a campaign to foster reconciliation between aggrieved Catholics and the Boston archdiocese.
Rubin, B.. "Here we go round the mulberry Bush." Washington Jewish Week, January 17, 2008,
Many articles have been written on President George W. Bush's visit to the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Not a single one that I've seen has mentioned the obvious point that goes so far in explaining everything.
Nor do Palestinian leaders feel the need to run such risks. It is far easier to take billions of dollars in Western money while complaining that nothing can be done because Israel is too intransigent and the U.S. doesn't give enough.
Why is there such a shocking gap between reality and policy? Pardy, it is due to ignorance and foolishness; from the U.S. standpoint, reasons also include trying to improve the administration's image, build an anti-Iran/Islamist alliance, gain domestic support and soothe Arabs and Muslims.
Susser, L.. "Abbas support: Is Obama betting on wrong horse?" Jewish News, June 4, 2009,
In his meetings last month with [Mahmoud Abbas] and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, [Obama] made one overriding demand: that Israel evacuate illegal West Bank outposts and freeze all construction in existing Jewish settlements. The move is calculated to enhance America's standing in the Arab world, bolster Abbas' flagging support on the Palestinian street and prevent the growth of what Washington considers obstacles to peace: Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
Abbas left Washington gratified and emboldened, saying he would not accept any modifications to the 2002 Arab peace initiative, which proposed trading peace for Israel's return to its pre-1967 borders and a deal on Palestinian refugees. Earlier, Abbas said he would not meet with Netanyahu until the Israeli leader accepted the two-state solution and agreed to freeze all settlement construction, per Obama's demand.
The upshot of all these divisions, says Menachem Klein, an expert on Palestinian Affairs at Bar-Ilan University, is that Abbas and the [Salam Fayyad] government have little support in Fatah or on the Palestinian street. Only a Fatah-Hamas national unity government with wide popular support can provide a Palestinian partner that can deliver, Klein says.
Susser, L.. "Talk of Deal With Syria Stirs Skepticism." Jewish Exponent, May 29, 2008.
The United States, which would have to underwrite any agreement for Israel-Syria peace to be viable, for the first time is absent from the negotiating mix. Also, Syria's ties with Iran, which would have to be downgraded significantly for Israel to sign an agreement are much deeper than when the last Israel-Syria peace effort collapsed in March 2000.
Both the Turkish mediators and the Syrians suggest that the premier reaffirmed the so-called Rabin "pocket," or "deposit." That was a promise that if Israel's needs on security and the nature of peaceful ties are met, the Jewish state will withdraw to the pre-Six-Day War borders of June 4, 1967 - in other words, hand back the entire Golan Heights.
Yet during his recent visit to Israel, [Bush] agreed to lift his long-standing opposition to any Israeli engagement with [Bashar Assad]'s Syria. Presumably, if the negotiations make progress and the United States needs to play a role, Bush or his successor in the Oval Office will be ready to make the necessary moves, given the huge geopolitical benefit of a pro- Western Syria.
