Mediation Policy and Practice

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Description
When I first trained in mediation in 2003, I was breathless at the possibilities mediation offered. Mediation was liberating; it supported and facilitated individuals' choices to take charge of and resolve their disputes if they wanted to. It respected norm generation, and emotions and personal values, always at the heart of disputes. Seventeen years later, this promise and value remains undiminished, In these seventeen years the use of mediation has grown in India. Mediation is now used to resolve several kinds of disputes. In this time as well, regulations encouraging and mandating the use of mediation have multiplied in many dispute categories. Dispute resolution policies are putting at their forefront the ease of resolving disputes and access to justice, that build in mediation as a process that aspires to address these objectives. Several important developments have taken place in the recent past that signal efforts to promote autonomous and collaborative processes for dispute resolution - the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2015, is an example of entrusting insolvency resolution to financial creditors. The amendment to the Commercial Courts Act, 2015 for pre-institution mediation in commercial cases, and the United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation, are further examples. The devastating impact of SARS COVID 19 has also made clear that adversarial approaches are not always appropriate for very many of the disputes that arise from circumstances outside of our control.
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Contents
1. About Mediation
2. Mediation Policies in India
3. Mediation in Labour Conflicts
4. Mediating Commercial Disputes
5. Mediation in Insolvency and Bankruptcy
6. Mediation in Matrimonial Disputes
7. Community Mediation
8. Mediation of Government Disputes
9. The Singapore Convention
10. Mediation and Online Dispute Resolution
11. Mediation in Intellectual Property Disputes
APPENDICES
1. The Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996
2. Alternative Dispute Resolution and Mediation Rules, 2003
3. United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreement Resulting from Mediation
4. UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Mediation and International Settlement
Agreements Resulting from Mediation, 2018
5. UNCITRAL Technical Notes on Online Dispute Resolution
6. Resources for Mediation Instruments
Subject Index
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Author Details
Chitra Narayan is a lawyer and mediator with over 25 years of experience. She is a founding Trustee of Foundation for Comprehensive Dispute Resolution (FCDR), Chennai, an initiative to mainstream mediation and provide mediation and conciliation services She is an accredited mediator with the Tamil Nadu Mediation and Conciliation Centre, annexed to the Madras High Court. She is a mediator with the Compliance Advisory Ombudsman of the World Bank Group, and part of the global mediation panel for workplace disputes for UN agencies (UNDP. UNFPA, UNICEF, UNOPS, and UN-Women) She was part of a national committee of mediators working on mediation legislation in India. She is a joint editor of Pollock and Mulla - The Indian Contract and Specific Relief Acts, 16th Edition (2019). Specialist Editor-C.R. Datta on the Company Law, 7th Edition (2016), and Specialist Editor - A. Ramaiya - Guide to the Companies Act, 18th Edition (2015). As a lawyer, Chitra has worked in corporate commercial law - both in transaction advisory and dispute resolution, which meaningfully supports her work in arbitration, mediation, and conciliation. She has been a partner with leading law firms prior to setting up independent practice. Chitra is a graduate of the National Law School of India University, Bangalore (1994), and has a Master's in Law in Development from the University of Warwick, U.K. which she attended as a Chevening Scholar (1995). She is a Weinstein JAMS
International Fellow (2017). She is Professor of Practice with the Daksha Fellowship at Sai University, Chennai, and directs the Dispute Resolution pathway in the Fellowship.