Invitation to join the Young Mediators Initiative (YMI)

Here’s an invitation from IMI:

Dear Young Mediator,

Earlier this year we were in contact with you in regards to the Young Mediators Initiative (YMI), which was established with the intention of encouraging and assisting young mediators worldwide to generate experience and to create a network where young mediators can communicate with each other and local networks.

We aim to launch the YMI website in August, so would like to invite you to become part of the YM Initiative!

You can view the criteria for joining YMI in the attached document. If you would like to join, just send an email to YMImediation@IMImediation.org and we will send you an email with your log in details.

Every young mediator will be able to build a profile in the YMI system so that mentors can have the opportunity to invite them to be assistants/observers in their mediations.

YMI aims to support young mediator groups – please feel free to share the information about YMI with your local groups that support young mediators and also with friends or colleagues who might be interested in hearing about YMI, both as young or experienced mediators.

We hope you will join YMI and be part of the mission to make mediation a recognised profession! Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at: YMImediation@IMImediation.org

Kind regards,

Your YMI Team

we connect – we encourage – we facilitate

Emma Ewart (IMI, New Zealand);
Angela Herberholz (ICC Dispute Resolution Service – ADR Secretariat, France);
Marc Kraus (Master Student, The Netherlands);
Pia Bihlmaier (ICC Training and Conferences, France);
Garrett Parks (Davis Wright Tremaine, USA); and
Grellan Kelly (Experienced Mediator, Ireland).

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Not-so-private mediation in China

Here’s an interesting piece from the China Daily on the use of mediation to settle family disputes, but doing so in a widely popular televised programme: “Mediators Solve Disputes in China’s Communities“. Apart from reminding us that China is where we initially “borrowed” mediation from in the early days of ADR’s development, this article is a good starting point for thinking about –

1. the adaptation of traditional processes to make use of new technologies (Chinese community mediation goes “online”?); and
2. the foundational role of mediation not so much as private settlement as a form of community and normative dispute settlement.

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Governor Cuomo’s negotiation

This post serves merely to provide a link to Robert Benjamin’s new article on mediate.com, commenting on Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s negotiation that led to the recent passage of the New York Marriage Equality Act. The article is valuable (and of course isn’t about “mediation in Asia”) because of Bob’s analysis of Gov. Cuomo’s partisan negotiation process (this was no neutral mediation!); and because of the important parallel point that the tools of negotiation and mediation go well beyond dispute resolution and private settlement, and instead have a well-established role in rule-making, consensus building and civic conversation and civic literacy. Quite apart from the specific and successful example of political negotiation in a highly contentious area of gay equality rights, the promising larger point here is about the potential of negotiation in fostering dialogue and civic conversations. And as the Cuomo’s example shows, there’s a huge value in strong leadership.

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