• A lawyers group claim that police arrested a carpenter on Wednesday who questioned whether Zimbabwe’s President still had the strength to blow up balloons at his 88^th birthday celebrations, under a law making it an offense to insult the President.
• The top UN envoy to Libya expressed…

Illinois Circuit Court Judge Hon. C. Stanley Austin (Ret.) Joins JAMS

March 6, 2012

Chicago – JAMS, the largest private provider of mediation and arbitration services worldwide, today announced the addition of Hon. C. Stanley Austin (Ret.) to its panel. Judge Austin will be based in the JAMS Chicago Resolution Center. He will serve as an arbitrator and mediator for Family Law and Personal Injury/Torts disputes.

Judge Austin…

• The UN-mandate University for Peace’s Centre for Executive Education is offering an online course on Skills for Effective Negotiations starting March 15^th.
• The Center on International Cooperation completed its Annual Review of Global Peace Operations 2012, covering both UN and non-UN peace…

The association for Public Sector Ombudsmen will hold its 33rd annual conference in Spokane, Washington on October 10-12, 2012.*  The conference will be hosted by Tim Burns, City of Spokane Police Ombudsman, and the keynote address offered by Nina E. Olson, the National Taxpayer Advocate. The event will be preceded by two days of training on October 8-9.  USOA’s Conference and Planning Committee is seeking speakers interested in sharing their subject matter expertise relevant to the Public…

I just finished my mediation residency at the Werner Institute. Although we didn't have a peak experience like we did last October with the Arab Spring panel discussion occurring on the day Gaddafi lost his life (wow, was that powerful and timely), many of us attended two great films that addressed the healing slowly progressing in N. Ireland. That was a very good night..... a very good night indeed.

Regardless, the massive amount of learning that took place at the residency (through…

The McGurk Effect: "The visual information a person gets from seeing a person speak changes the way they hear the sound."  The below demonstrates this illusion with the sound  'ba' that becomes heard as 'fa' when the movement of the lips is changed:

This phenomenon has implications for social…

So often we embark on a difficult communication or react to a conflict situation by trying to discuss it, before we or the other person are ready. Anxiety to resolve the issues, a desire to get past the high emotions, a need to make amends and other reasons compel many of us to dive in prematurely to talk things out. On the other hand, we may tend to wait too long before we reach out and find our efforts are perceived as ‘too little too late’, despite our good…

Episode #30 Mediators Beyond Borders: Past Present & Future

Join host Jeff…

My name is Enda Young and I’m a Conflict Management Trainer,  Facilitator, Mediator & Alternative Dispute Resolution Practitioner working for TIDES Training and Consultancy based in Northern Ireland.  I’m currently spending 3 months on a…

By: David Hubbard,…

Episode #30

Mediators Beyond Borders- Past, Present & future

Join host Jeff Thompson and Charlie Pillsbury, executive director of Mediators Beyond Borders.  Charlie explains…

• European Union leaders confirmed that Herman Van Rompuy will serve a second term as President of the European Council on Thursday. Van Rompuy has served as the President since December 2009.
• A remote-controlled bomb injured 15 police officers and…

• At least 28 people were reportedly killed in clashes on Saturday between government troops and opposition forces in Syria as the Red Cross continued efforts to evacuate civilians from the city of Homs; while at least 89 people were reportedly killed nationwide. On Sunday, the ICRC said that…

[originally published on dialogicmediation.com]

A couple of weeks back, Dan Simon drew a comparison on his new transformative mediation blog between the thinking of Carl Rogers, the founder of…

Originally published on the BC Distance Family Mediation blog

“The difference between the right word and the almost right word

is the difference between lightning and a lightning…

• The Atlantic ran an interesting article discussing whether Central America should legalize drugs or not, in an effort to reduce the drug related violence in the region. Al Jazeera also took a look at rising drug related violence in Central America in the wake of a…

 Originally published at mediationbytes.wordpress.com

Should we really have clients recount traumatic events in detail in mediation?  Or is that actually a disservice to clients?   Are we reinforcing fear, and sidetracking settlement?  Or are we helping clients move past the trauma?

According to recent studies, recalling a traumatic event shortly after…

On November 7, 2011 our Association for Conflict Resolution – Hawaii Chapter – www.acrhawaii.com – launched a new pilot project called Virtual Mediation Lab. Its goal is to show how mediators around the world can practice and improve their mediation skills by participating – with other mediators – in online simulations via Skype.

How our simulations work is explained and demonstrated in a 3-min video posted on…

Listen by clicking the Player below.

In this show, we'll be talking with gay couples therapist and author Rik Isenseeabout the various challenges and opportunities gay men face in their relationships: how to resolve conflicts, and also how to deal with the in-laws who may or may not accept their…

Conflict can weigh us down and we limp along with it on our shoulders. These are the times we ask ourselves questions like, “Why did I get into that fight?”, or “What was I trying to prove?, or “What was she on about?”, or “Why did he get so upset?” In any case, when we care about the relationship, the weight usually feels heavier than when we don’t. The questions we ask ourselves at these times are often negative, self-limiting or self-serving.

Here are some other questions to ask…