Originally from Dispute Resolution Journal

In his presentation at the ICC/AAA/ICSID Joint Colloquium held in Paris last year, Mark Baker outlined and compared the mediation rules and procedures in international institutions such as the ICC, the AAA, and WIPO, among others. The following is an excerpt from that presentation.

As with arbitration, ADR procedures may be conducted pursuant to a set of procedural rules developed and sponsored by an institutional dispute resolution service provider or according to an ad hoc set of procedures developed by the parties themselves. An ADR procedure administered by a dispute resolution service provider, in accordance with its institutional rules,1 has many advantages and is generally the preferred form. Although this entails additional administrative costs attributable to the fees charged by the provider, the benefits received in return are considerable. These include an administrative and supervisory infrastructure; a trained staff focused on the efficient administration of the dispute resolution procedure; and an independent framework for resolving difficult issues that might arise in the course of the proceedings. Another very important benefit of institutional ADR is the availability of a tried and tested set of procedural rules providing a known and predictable structure.

There are a number of institutions around the world today offering mediation and various other forms of ADR services. In order to assist international dispute resolution practitioners and those charged with the task of negotiating and drafting dispute resolution clauses to better understand the differences between the various procedures that are available, we reviewed the procedural rules offered by some of the world’s leading dispute resolution service providers that offer mediation and ADR procedures, as well as the UNCITRAL Conciliation Rules, which are often administered by several of these providers.