“Meditation is the Future”
From 2 to 4 November 2018 in Minsk was held the 3nd International students’ competition on mediation and negotiations “Mediation of the future”.
This competition was aimed, first of all, at the advancement of mediation as the extrajudicial way of settlement of disputes as well as at popularization of mediation among students of institutions of higher education and, ipso facto, at provision of opportunity of acquisition of knowledge about the up-to-date tendencies in development of mediation.
In the competition took part teams-mediators along with teams-negotiators represented by undergraduate and postgraduate students of institutions of higher education of the Republic of Belarus, Russian Federation, and the Republic of Kazakhstan. Participants were asked to give reasons for their stances on four prepared in advance cases.
Game cases are nothing else than description of conflicts (disputes) in spheres of intellectual property and commercial activities. In 45 minutes before mediation (a business game) commenced, teams-negotiators were informed of the name of a case, which part of the case they will represent, as well as the confidential information. To our regret, it was not always possible to conclude a mediatory deal, since it was not always possible to reach a mutually acceptable solution, or, one of parties did not consider interests of the another one in full measure.
In one of cases I and my colleague from the Belarusian State University represented one of teams, participation of which was granted by the BelBrand Association, became able to reach the as much as possible mutually acceptable solution by parties. In particular, to bring to reconciliation, i.e., to revive lost friendly attitudes as a misunderstanding took place. Since, as is known, mediation is in the first place aimed at establishment and maintenance of parity and friendly relations that is at the settlement of a conflict from within.
In the end of mediation arbiters appraised the progress made by all participants. It is worth to point out that arbiters gave the businesslike advices on improvement of skills of participants and it was distinctly noticeable already in the next round. In some situations it was managed to raise questions related to the prospects of advancement of mediation across the territory of the post-Soviet States, to the routine of application of mediation in a certain form of legal procedures, to the capacity of utilization of mediation in relation to criminal conflicts, and to other problems.
It is necessary to note that coordinators of the given event actualized defined aims and tasks in full.
Participants express their gratitude to the BelBrand Association and to the Negotiations and Mediation Center for the rendered opportunity of participation in the contest as well as for a high level of organization of the event.