The competition takes place online with each match run in a dedicated webfile using the bespoke software of The MediationRoom.com Each team can include not only the negotiating members (usually 3 or 4) but an unlimited number of fellow students to follow negotiations and post suggestions in a private team area. The enrolment fee (300GBP) will include a licence for the school to run three additional online casefiles to use afterwards, as a training tool or for ad hoc matches with other law schools.

The main points to note from the unique competition format are as follows:

- Two matches,over two weeks for each match, with each team acting for the Claimant and then for the Defendant.

- The case scenario is split into two scenarios, one as presented by the Claimant and one as presented by the Defendant. They will vary in presentation to reflect different interests.

- Each team will have a client allocated. The scenario is learnt through online discussion with the ‘client’. It is up to the teams to extract the fullest information.

- After taking instructions on the case, each team then has to draft a case pleading, based on general principles, not on any specific law.

- Following pleadings,each team has 12 days to negotiate. If they fail to settle, the case goes to a 3 day mediation with an online mediator.

- Each team is expected to make use of an area for anonymous brainstorming of solutions where solutions can be brainstormed and considered objectively without attaching weight through knowledge of the interests of the party concerned.

Prize:

The winning team will receive its own version of an Online Pro Bono Clinic driven by the Software behind this service, branded to the school and hosted for five years.

Further, one member of the winning team (selected by the team) will receive flight and accommodation to attend the 2008 International Forum on Online Dispute Resolution to be held at Royal Roads University in Victoria and the Lester B. Pearson College of the Pacific on Vancouver Island June 18-19th 2008.

More information: International Law School Negotiation and Mediation Competition

Copy for the 2003 release is due at the end of March. The book is mainly used in the UK and other commonwealth jurisdictions.

I would welcome any hard news of or advice about these new procedures as they are working out in practice.

Robert Fenwick Elliott
http://www.fenwick-elliott.co.uk”

Year 2003

The expectation is that online technology will speed up and reduce the cost of international arbitration proceedings. It is expected to remove the need for sending large quantities of paper through courier services and replace face-to-face meetings by cheaper and easier online video conferencing. This seminar will ask the question “How realistic are these expectations?”

For the last two years the E-Arbitration-T team of lawyers and technologists have been looking at these issues. A key feature of international arbitration is that it delivers a result – the award – that national courts will recognise and enforce. We cannot simply substitute Internet and computer technology without considering the criteria courts will apply in deciding that the award was made properly and fairly within the intent of relevant international law. This seminar will look at the technological options and the rules and procedures necessary to exploit them. It will also examine the need for change in the international legal framework to reap the full technological benefits.

E-Arbitration-T cannot give an unqualified endorsement of these expectations. We have carried out careful analysis of different options and in some key areas the procedures adopted have much more impact on the speed and cost of dispute resolution than the choice of technology. At the seminar we will present these findings and show where we believe technology can deliver real advantages. The seminar is free-of-charge and is being presented on two alternative dates: Thursday January 16 or Friday January 17.

Programme

9:30 Registration and coffee (SJ004)
10:00 Welcome to DISC at Brunel (SJ008)
A walk through the process
10:15 Electronic transmission of documents
- Getting started with the request and answer
- Exchanging claims, defences and other documents

11:15 Coffee
11:30 Other online support
- Tribunal formation
- Hearings
- Rendering the award
12:45 Lunch (SJ004)
Perspectives
1:45 Managing the proceedings (SJ008)
- Extending the rules
- Specifying the timetable and events
- Other neutral roles
3:00 Coffee (SJ004)
3:15 The legal framework and Harmonisation
3:45 Open discussion
4:30 Close

Practical Arrangements

It will take place in the Department of Information Systems and Computing, The St. John’s Building, Brunel University, Kingston Lane, Uxbridge, UB8 3PH, U.K.

To register to attend contact Julie Eatock, by email fax (+44 1895 251686) or phone (+44 1895 203259) with your name, affiliation and contact details so we can allocate you a place and send you full joining instructions.

Year 2002