UN Guidance on Effective Mediation

October 7th, 2012 · 1 Comment

The UN recently released its guidance for international mediators. Press release here. Formal document here.

I can’t say that I’ve read it with great care. The first thing that jumped out at me was its treatment of the topic of impartiality. I would not have guessed the UN, in particular, to have been so insistent on impartiality given some of the contexts in which its mediators operate. My own experience in the field is that notions of impartiality look very, very different standing in a ceasefire zone than they do in a boardroom. I’d have predicted we’d see something with even more acknowledgement of some of those differences.

Still, interesting reading. An ADR Professor could likely harvest most, if not all, of a final exam just by lifting a few of the pages of this report and asking students to comment…

TOTH: Carrie Heltzel