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Eva Hardegen:
1st ICC International Commercial Mediation Competition, Paris

(Eva Hardegen is a lawyer with Norr Stiefenhofer Lutz, Frankfurt and Coach of the Heidelberg Team.)

The first ICC International Commercial Mediation Competition took place at the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Paris from January 14-16, 2006. Over that weekend, teams from 13 universities from all over the world competed to find the best negotiation skills in commercial mediation in an international and very well-organized setting. The ADR Division of the ICC Dispute Resolution Service started an enormous pilot project for students to learn about effective mediation representation skills. The ICC restricted the number of participants to sixteen law schools to take part in this new way of learning. Dr. Robert Briner, Chairman of the ICC International Court of Arbitration, and David Plant, American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolution, had the idea to organize a mediation competition a few years ago, as Dr. Briner announced at the welcoming dinner. What started as a pilot project will continue to be held annually. The competition was based on the ICC ADR Rules, which provide a framework for an ADR settlement.

Eight universities from the United States (Cumberland School of Law Stamford University, Fordham Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, Hamline University School of Law, Marquette University. University of California Hastings College of the Law, University of Houston Law Center and Washington University School of Law), two from France (lnstitut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Science-Po); and University of Montpellier School of Law), a Canadian team (McGill University Faculty of Law) and a team from the United Kingdom (Nottingham Law School Bar Vocational Course) participated in the competition. From Germany, only the Ruprecht-Karls-University of Heidelberg was invited and sent a team of four students. Considering the level of development of ADR in the aforementioned countries, the dominance of the United States is not surprising.

The competition consisted of a written and an oral phase. At the beginning of December, the Organizing Committee sent out four problems consisting of General Facts and Confidential Information for one side. The students had to evaluate these problems and write a so called "Representation Plan" for each problem. In the Representation Plan, the students had to lay out, e. g. interests of both sides and their negotiation strategy. The Representation Plan also contained an ADR analysis on which ADR technique would be most appropriate to settle the dispute. The students therefore had to discuss the different ADR techniques, offered by the ICC, and find the best technique for their dispute. The oral phase started on Saturday, January 14, 2006 in Paris with the preliminary rounds. Each team had to negotiate all four problems with a team of another university. The universities participated in each negotiation with a team consisting of a lawyer and his client. The mediators were experienced experts in their fields. They were briefed by the ICC to restrict themselves to a facilitative approach only. This led to the students not only learning about mediation but also about negotiation skills to solve business related international problems and disputes. One could see the improvements of the students from one round ro the next.

The problems were drafted by five lawyers from different regions of the world, to cater for the different cultural backgrounds of the students: Hal Abramson (United States), Na-bil Antaki (Canada, Syria, Lebanon), Michel Kallipetis (United Kingdom), David Plant (United States) and Jean Timsit (France). The Drafting Committee chose cases from their own practice of different fields of law and thereby created a variety which met the requirements of the competition in a well-defined way.

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 Der Bericht als PDF