Recent experiences with collaborative divorce of the Dutch Association for Collaborative Divorce (VCDH, connected with IACP, the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals), confirm the importance of broadening the practice collaborative law to affairs in business, governmental and political affairs in the Netherlands, especially in more complex questions. The importance for both ADR and professionals in law, finance, accountancy, notariate, tax affairs, psychology or organisational-, HRM- and governmental consultancy.

On 1 January 2013 the new Mediation Rules of CEPANI (the Belgian Center for Arbitration and Mediation) entered into force. The 2013 CEPANI Mediation Rules replace the 2005 version of the CEPANI Mediation Rules and also the 2010 version of the CEPANI ICT (Information and Communication Technology) Mediation Rules. The 2013 Rules contain provisions on the introduction of the mediation, the appointment of the mediator, the mediation protocol to be established at the beginning of the mediation process, the conduct of the mediation, the confidentiality, the end of the mediation and its costs. The authors comment on these various provisions of the CEPANI Mediation Rules and explain thereby also the relevant provisions of the Belgian Mediation Law contained in Chapter VII of the Belgian Judicial Code.

This diptych consists of two articles: the first, The Rise and Fall of Mediation in Italy, by Elisabetta Silvestri, analyzes the way in which the Italian Constitutional Court has recently (October-December 2012) struck down a Decree that had introduced mandatory mediation in a wide range of civil procedure areas in Italy. The second article, The EU’s Italian Job, by Rob Jagtenberg, discusses the way in which the Advocate-General with the Court of Justice of the European Union has dealt with the request for a preliminary ruling on the compatibility of the same Decree with European law (Opinion of 19 April 2013). It appears that at both Court levels, the subject was perceived as too risky to judge on the merits: mandatory mediation thus ends as a potato too hot to hold in a court’s hand.