mediator

An impartial, mutually acceptable third party whose goal is to help conflicted parties resolve their dispute. Mediators lack the power to coerce or bargain, but they can use facilitative power to influence disputants. (Michael Watkins and Susan Rosegrant, Breakthrough International Negotiations [Jossey-Bass, 2001], 93)

The following items are tagged mediator.

David A. Hoffman

Posted by & filed under Affiliated Faculty, PON Affiliated Faculty.

Hoffman_David

David A. Hoffman is an attorney, mediator, arbitrator, and founding member of Boston Law Collaborative, LLC. David teaches the Mediation course at Harvard Law School, where he is the John H. Watson Jr. Lecturer on Law, and co-teaches the Mediation course at the Harvard Negotiation Institute of the Program on Negotiation. He has also been the lead trainer in several mediation trainings for the American Bar Association.

Gary J. Friedman

Posted by & filed under Affiliated Faculty, PON Affiliated Faculty.

Gary_J_Friedman_100w

Gary J. Friedman has bee practicing law as a mediation with the MEdiation Law Offices in Mill Valley, California, since 1976, integrating meditative principles into the practice of law and the resolution of legal disputes. Through the non-profit organization which he co-founded, The Center for Understanding in Conflict (formerly the Center for Mediation in Law), he has been teaching mediation since 1980.

Managing Internal Conflict: Russia’s Bid to Join the WTO

Posted by & filed under Conflict Management.

In June 1993, a little over a year after the fall of communist rule in Russia, President Boris Yeltsin submitted an application for Russia to join the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the precursor to the World Trade Organization (WTO). Eighteen years later, in November 2011, Russia finally was voted into the WTO, which administers international trade rules among its members. This past August, the nation officially became a member of the organization.

Water Diplomacy: Value Creating Approachs to Water Negotiation

Posted by & filed under Conflict Management.

Zero-sum thinking emerges when people conceive of water as a fixed resource – one provided by nature in a given quantity that is either static or diminishing. Based on these assumptions, diplomats often focus on what share of the existing water will be given to each entity. Negotiations of this type typically involve decision makers who are political leaders focused on preserving sovereignty and maintaining state security. They are often unprepared to think about improving the overall efficiency of water use, which, in effect, can “create” more water.

Roger D. Fisher, 1922-2012

Choosing to Help

Posted by & filed under Negotiation Skills.

It is the spring of 1997 and I am sitting in Pound 107 while Roger Fisher ’48, Williston Professor of Law, Emeritus, is telling a story about his serving as a weather reconnaissance pilot in World War II. As a teaching assistant for the Negotiation Workshop, I have heard the story at least a dozen times by now and feel my mind wandering. And yet, against my will, as the story reaches its crescendo and the combination punch line/negotiation issue flows from Roger’s lips, I find myself involuntarily leaning forward and, a second later, helplessly bursting into laughter. The note I jot down to myself is: “All of life is about who tells better stories.”

A Common Ground Approach to Societal Conflict Resolution

Posted by & filed under Events, International Negotiation, Student Events.

The Program on Negotiation is pleased to present:
A Common Ground Approach
to Societal Conflict Resolution
with

John Marks
President and Founder of Search for Common Ground
and

Susan Collin Marks
Senior Vice President of Search for Common Ground
Monday, October 15th, 2012
12 p.m. – 1 p.m.
Wasserstein 2004
Harvard Law School Campus
Please bring your own lunch; soft drinks and cookies will be

Announcing the 2012 PON Summer Fellows

Posted by & filed under PON Summer Fellowships, Students.

About the PON Summer Fellowship Program:

PON offers fellowship grants to students at Harvard University, MIT, Tufts University and other Boston-area schools who are doing internships or undertaking summer research projects in negotiation and dispute resolution in partnership with public, non-profit or academic organizations. The Summer Fellowship Program’s emphasis is on advancing the links between