Public Policy

I was all set to write about climate change and, more particularly, to reflect on some excellent writing on that subject which addresses so-called climate change sceptics or deniers. It seems to me…

Some 20 years ago, as part of a nostalgia trip (for me) and introductory trip (for my wife) to my childhood haunts in Malaysia, we visited the coastal town of Lumut and the offshore island, Pangkor…

“The key to doing well lies not in overcoming others, but in eliciting their co-operation." Robert Axelrod “Although negotiation takes place every day, it is not easy to do well. Standard strategies…

  Five days from now Scotland may be on its way to becoming the world’s newest country. Or it may not. Just over four million of us will vote on September 18th to determine future political…

  Czech Innovation: "Mediation Assistants" Fascinating visit to the Czech Republic recently. I was asked to provide the training for a group of ‘mediation assistants’. Never having heard the term…

The recent publication of a study conducted for the European Parliament on Mediation, “Rebooting the Mediation Directive,” has contributed to the ongoing debate about effective mediation policy. I am…

How do you get people to eat more fruit and less junk food? How do you get more people to agree to donate their organs? How do you get more people to engage in cross-border mediation? I’ll come back…

Should the conduct of a party in mediation be taken into account in setting cost consequences once the dispute has been adjudicated? An insurer has been “spanked” to the tune of $60,000 by an Ontario…

The Civil Justice system in Ontario is broken; badly broken. Not a week goes by without another report decrying the sad state of affairs in our Courts. Consider the article from the most recent Law…