A New Voice for Mediation
The launch of the American Arbitration Association’s (AAA) Mediation Magazine comes at a pivotal juncture. For decades, mediation was too often described as an “alternative” to litigation or arbitration — an option on the margins. That perception no longer reflects reality.
Across industries and jurisdictions, mediation has proven itself as a credible, structured, and transformative method to resolve disputes. It is increasingly the first serious conversation parties have about dispute resolution in cross-border commerce, public–private partnerships, investor–state negotiations, and community conflicts.
The debut of Mediation Magazine reflects the increased importance and awareness of the need for dialogue, the exchange of ideas around mediation best practices, and the development of mediation theory.
As such, the publication will be an exciting new voice from an institution with a great history as a thought leader in dispute resolution.
Collaboration with the Kluwer Mediation Blog
This column, International Mediation, forms part of a collaboration between the AAA and the Kluwer Mediation Blog (KMB). For over 15 years, the KMB has provided one of the most vibrant platforms for global dialogue on mediation, with contributions from practitioners, judges, policymakers, academics, and mediation enthusiasts across every continent.
The KMB has explored and continues to explore subjects as diverse as the cultural role of silence in negotiations, the voluntary versus mandatory mediation debate, mediation’s role in climate and energy transition disputes, and the ethical dilemmas raised by artificial intelligence (AI). What emerges is a picture of mediation as a living craft — shaped by context, culture, and innovation.
Equally, the AAA has long understood and promoted the utility of mediation, offering comprehensive mediation rules and an extensive panel of experienced mediation practitioners.
The AAA and KMB aim to strengthen and broaden the conversation around mediation through an exciting two-way exchange. Every edition of Mediation Magazine will feature contributions from the KMB’s editorial team. In turn, the KMB will engage with each edition of the AAA Magazine — offering reflective commentary and situating its themes within the wider global conversation on mediation.
The AAA’s deep institutional expertise — its rules, frameworks, and decades of practice — provides a solid foundation for structured, reliable mediation. The KMB, by contrast, brings a comparative and global lens, highlighting how mediation evolves across cultures, jurisdictions, and sectors. In collaboration, each platform will enrich the other: the AAA will gain perspective on how its practices resonate internationally, while the KMB’s readership gains an insider’s view of the AAA’s extensive and practical experience. Together they amplify the dialogue, connecting domestic and international perspectives, practice and theory, institutional structure, and individual creativity.
Why Mediation Matters
The launch of Mediation Magazine and the collaboration with the KMB comes at a time when the world needs to focus on non-determinative dispute resolution techniques and opportunities. The complexity of modern disputes intermingled as they are with geopolitics, climate issues, and increasing demands of all stakeholders to be heard, lend themselves to a more collaborative approach to dispute resolution.
The focus on mediation is logical as its benefits traverse much beyond speed, flexibility, or confidentiality. Its greatest strength lies in its inherent ability to preserve relationships, protect reputations, and build resilience.
A successful mediation can save a joint venture in the energy sector that would otherwise collapse under arbitration. It can give voice and recognition to local communities impacted by infrastructure projects. It can preserve commercial partnerships, protect ongoing supply chains, and reduce the human and financial cost of conflict.
The AAA has long recognised these values. Its mediation services have supported businesses, communities, and public bodies for decades, empowering parties to arrive at mutually agreeable practical and durable outcomes. With the launch of Mediation Magazine, the AAA is investing further in inculcating knowledge, sharing best practices, and advancing the role and status of mediation in conflict management – local and global.
This column intends to be a companion on this journey. It will not prescribe a single “right way;” instead, it will reflect on the diversity of mediation approaches, the choices parties face, and the trust mediators and other stakeholders or well-wishers of mediation must foster if mediation is to consistently deliver on its promise.
Mediation in a Global Context
If mediation can be simply defined as a confidential, flexibly structured process where a neutral assists parties in reaching agreement, its practice internationally is anything but simple. Once disputes cross borders, complexity multiplies: different legal frameworks, cultural expectations, languages, and industries converge in ways that challenge mediators and parties alike.
This is precisely why the launch of Mediation Magazine matters. The AAA has decades of experience designing and delivering mediation services, and its International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR) has supported mediations across borders and sectors. By joining forces with the KMB, the AAA synthesises institutional knowledge and global comparative insights at a time when mediation is playing a larger role in commerce, infrastructure, energy, and technology disputes worldwide.
The goal is to create a space where diverse perspectives can meet: where practices from one jurisdiction can inform another, where lessons from investor–state mediation can illuminate community-level disputes, and where questions of enforceability, timing, and style can be discussed in ways that serve as lessons on what to apply and what not to apply across borders.
Styles and Approaches
One of the recurring themes on the KMB has been the diversity of mediation styles across jurisdictions. This comparative lens is central to the collaboration with the AAA because it highlights that there is no single model of “international mediation.”
In some systems, facilitative mediators are expected to channel dialogue and let the parties craft their own solutions. In others, evaluative mediators are expected to test positions and suggest outcomes. Conciliation in many countries blends advisory roles with shuttle diplomacy, while the emphasis in community-based contexts may be less on resolving a legal claim than on restoring harmony.
The KMB has consistently profiled how these approaches are not static or isolated categories but are instead dynamic positions points along a spectrum. The most effective mediators often navigate fluidly between them — perhaps starting out with a purely facilitative approach to cultivate trust, and then gradually shifting to a more evaluative stance to help close the deal. Having said this, what one party perceives as “neutral” guidance may feel directive or instructive to another.
This is where the AAA’s long history of institutional practice complements the KMB’s comparative focus. Together, they provide both, the structural framework and cross-cultural awareness to help mediators and parties navigate different expectations. In this way, the collaboration allows readers of Mediation Magazine to benefit from practical guidance anchored in the AAA’s experience, enriched by the KMB’s exploration of how mediation styles travel across borders.
Best Practices as an Ongoing Dialogue
Another theme that unites the AAA and KMB is the rejection of “best practices” as a rigid checklist. Both institutions instead treat it as a continuous, evolving conversation — one that adapts with context, culture, and technology.
The AAA’s contribution to mediation theory and practice lies in its structured rules, skilled panel of mediators and decades of experience in designing processes that deliver results. The KMB’s contribution lies in illustrating how the same issue, mediation strategy, or practice may play out differently in Singapore, São Paulo, Lagos, or London.
Looked at this way, mediation best practices can be addressed as a set of recurring questions rather than fixed answers, which include:
- Design: How much preparation is needed to ensure authority to settle, address language needs and agree confidentiality protocols?
- Inclusivity: Who belongs at the table — governments, regulators, investors, contractors, communities, and lawyers — and in what sequence and order of priority?
- Trust: How can trust be built across cultures, particularly in online or hybrid formats where body language and presence are diminished?
- Co-mediation: How should neutrality and coordination be maintained when multiple mediators from different traditions are appointed?
- Enforceability: How can settlements be “drafted for travel,” anticipating cross-border enforcement and, where possible, consent awards?
- Ethics: How do we reconcile diverse cultural expectations of neutrality, disclosure, and fairness?
The KMB demonstrates how practitioners and academics in different regions answer these questions differently, while the AAA offers the institutional framework and practices that ensure consistency and reliability.
Looking Ahead
What will this column cover in the months ahead?
Some contributions will focus on process design — structuring mediation where multiple legal systems and stakeholders converge. Others will explore philosophical questions – concepts of neutrality, dignity, autonomy, and the proper (and desired) role of courts and tribunals in encouraging mediation. Technology will remain a recurring theme - online platforms, AI-assisted case preparation and digital trust, and the continued use and development of these in mediation. Disputes involving global issues — climate change, ESG, and energy transition — will challenge mediation’s limits, while hybrid processes will continue to raise questions about presence, connection, and equal voice.
At the heart of all of this is the human dimension – active listening, empathy, cultural sensitivity, and silence. These are the qualities that often determine whether a settlement is purely technical or genuinely durable.
A Shared Endeavor
Mediation thrives on exchange. Practices travel across borders, institutions learn from each other, and parties shape the field through their expectations.
Together, the Mediation Magazine and the KMB endeavour to amplify diverse voices, share comparative insights, and connect theory with practice.
This column will follow those choices — reflecting, questioning, and sharing insights that strengthen a culture of problem-solving that can travel across borders.
About the Author
Paul Sills is recognized as a leading international arbitrator and mediator with more than three decades of experience resolving high-value and complex disputes across multiple jurisdictions. He is frequently appointed in matters involving multiple parties, overlapping legal systems, and cross-sector commercial issues, reflecting his reputation for navigating disputes at the highest level.
Before establishing himself as a full-time neutral, Paul practiced as a civil and commercial barrister with a strong international focus, advising on disputes in aviation, construction, infrastructure, engineering, energy, and technology. His legal career was complemented by senior executive roles as CEO and Director of international businesses, giving him rare first-hand insight into the commercial and governance realities that underpin many disputes.
Paul has acted as a company receiver in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis, managing the restructuring and resolution of finance and construction company failures. As Managing Director and CEO of an international construction group, he worked directly on large-scale projects involving state-owned enterprises, global investors, and joint venture partners.
He is an established thought leader, regularly lecturing and publishing in the UK and globally on arbitration, mediation, fintech, climate change, energy transition, and complex infrastructure disputes. He has taught international commercial arbitration at Westminster University Law School and delivers fellowship training for arbitrators and mediators worldwide. Paul is a Fellow of leading arbitral institutions including CIArb and has trained at the Harvard Program on Negotiation, with a focus on complex, multi-party, and cross-cultural negotiations.
Paul’s standing in the field has been recognized internationally. Since 2022, Who’s Who Legal has ranked him as a Global Leader in Mediation, and he was appointed Chairperson of the European Commission’s arbitration panel for EU trade disputes.
With extensive experience in both common law and civil law systems, and in both institutional and ad hoc proceedings, Paul brings a rare combination of legal expertise, commercial acumen, and cross-cultural sensitivity. This positions him among the global elite of dispute resolution practitioners and makes him exceptionally well placed to accept appointments in major international arbitrations and mediations.