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In Praise of Distance

"For two weeks now I have not left my immediate neighbourhood to go out into the city and have only left my apartment to go shopping for food or to walk our dog. A couple of times I did drive out of the city. I have not used public transportation, wh...

Arbitration, Neutral Adjudication, Conciliation, Mediation: What’s in a Word? Designing and Naming ADR Processes – The Example of an Industrial Relations Dispute in Germany

"Mediation and conflict management often require the design of complex processes that might involve different interventions with different parties or stakeholders over considerable time. Consider mediation in the planning stages of public projects...

Conciliation with a Mediation Touch – 10 Years of Consumer Conciliation for Public Transportation in Germany

"Two days ago I attended a birthday party – one of Germany’s most active consumer conciliation bodies celebrated its ten-year anniversary. There was an interesting panel discussion on the role of consumer conciliation in Germany and in Eu...

Good Reasons Not to Envisage Amicable Resolution

"People have very good reasons not to want to enter into dialogue with each other over conflict (with or without mediation).

We Can Work It Out / You Can’t Always Get What You Want

"I learned two foreign languages back in school, and there is a reason why my German was always going to be better than my French. I blame The Beatles. In my last blog I promised I would write about the Beatles and the Rolling Stones (and not Brex...

Brexit and No End in Sight: A View from the Perspective of a Theory of Negotiation

"I am sorry for writing about Brexit again here. It is not as if Brexit matters that much. To readers of this blog outside of Europe perhaps not all. But I cannot resist it. I was thinking about writing about the Beatles and The Rolling Stones &nd...

Germany Legislates To Improve Tax Dispute Resolution

"On April 16, Germany's Ministry of Finance published a draft law that would transpose into German law the requirements of the European Union directive on tax dispute settlement mechanisms. Directive 2017/1852 was adopted by the Euro...

Mediator = Manipulator?

"The word “manipulation” has a bad name. It is usually used to denote devious and underhand behaviour. If we say that someone is being manipulative or that someone is a manipulative person then we are usually disapproving. Mediators...

On the Benefits of Mediation Training, and On Getting Things Wrong. An Interview with Eva Chye

"Last week I was reading an essay by the American novelist Jonathan Franzen, and was struck by the following thought: “The essay’s roots are in literature, and literature at its best […] invites you to ask whether you might be s...

Selecting a Mediator: in General, in Commercial Cases – and in a Kingdom in Need?

"There is an old debate in mediation circles about the qualifications (formal and informal) that mediators need to mediate, and what specialist knowledge they are expected to have. In some countries, mediators are required to be qualified lawye...