Samenvatting

This contribution reconstructs the development of court referred mediation in England and Wales, from the 1990s until the present, or, put differently: from the Woolf report ‘Access to Justice’, to the recent public consultations on ‘Dispute Resolution’ and on ‘Increasing the Use of Mediation in the Civil Justice System’ respectively. The interplay between case law and (empirical findings re:) trends in the number of mediations is highlighted. The article concludes with some reflections on full mandatory referral to mediation, as recently introduced for small money claims.