My interest in mediation had been aroused when I – then a local government official – became involved in a conciliation between farmers and local residents in a dispute about cutting down trees. This experience made me decide to start working as a community-mediator in the city of Eindhoven. For a person with an agricultural background like me is community-mediating in a large city quite an adventure. You have to deal with social problems you are not familiar with, for instance because city dwellers may have other standards and values. Uncovering these standards and values and especially naming the feelings involved is essential for the communication between quarrelling neighbours, the first step towards normal mutual relations.

In this empirical-legal study, the mediation arrangements concluded in the context of a divorce by mutual consent are studied by using the social scientific method of content analysis. Within a representative sample of Flemish divorce agreements, these clauses are both quantitatively and qualitatively analyzed. The quantitative results show that the number of mediation arrangements and ADR clauses in the dataset are rather low. The qualitative content analysis reveals that most mediation provisions can be improved. Ultimately, this contribution contains suggestions to improve the terminology and stipulation of the investigated clauses.

The rapid and ongoing development of the Internet has greatly affected new types and sources of conflict but also the ways conflicts are handled. Nowadays, more and more mediation service providers offer online tools to manage conflicts, going from fully e-supported mediations to hybrid mediations which are partly face to face (F2F) and partly computerized. Despite the increasing use of different types of e-supported mediation, practitioners and scholars know little about their effects or under which conditions different types of e-supported tools are best used. This contribution focuses on the role e-tools may play in text based mediations (mainly labor and divorce mediations) which are mediated by a human mediator. We hope to provide third parties of all sort (mediators, practitioners, consultants, managers, etc.) with practical guidelines for the use of e-supported mediation.

This article deals with two European proposals on consumer disputes: one proposal for an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Directive and one for an Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) Regulation. The European Mediation Directive is also taken into account. Important issues are the voluntary nature of ADR and the quality of the so-called ADR entities.
Some regulation in the field of ADR might be useful, but the proposals are quite detailed. In the Netherlands, till now ADR has been successful without too much – or even without any – regulation. The two proposals could lead to undesirable intervention in an effective self-regulating ADR system.

In February 2013 a Dutch delegation of four students and two coaches travelled to Paris to participate in the annual International Commercial Mediation Competition.