Haris Meidanis (International Business Law LLM, 1996) acted as a mediator and a judge in the preliminary rounds of the ICC Mediation Competition in February 2021.
This is what Haris says about the competition and his participation: ‘As a proud CCLS alumnus, I had the chance to act both as a mediator and a judge in the preliminary rounds. I also judged at one of the two semi-finals with the participation of the winners and the third place team, while I also mediated with the fourth place team in the preliminary rounds. All this was a great privilege for me. I hope to be able to be there in the coming years as well!
This year, the competition was online, as is the case with most real-life mediations during the Covid-19 times.
The issues that arise during an online mediation can differ substantially from the ones that appear in a face-to-face mediation and are mainly linked to the use of cameras, connection problems, limited understanding of body language and even the comparatively faster approaching fatigue of the participants. These issues appeared in the competition as well and in this sense, the competition reflected the current reality of mediation worldwide.
The missing part in this year’s competition was real-life interaction, especially the social interaction, which is not easy to replace with the virtual tables that the organisers set up for the use of the teams and professionals. Overall, the organisation of the event was a high-level one, as is the case with ICC organised events.
This year 48 teams participated, and the winners in an all-women final were the team from Auckland University, New Zealand. The runner up was the University of Sofia, Bulgaria. The University of New South Wales, Australia took third place, followed by the Brooklyn Law School from the United States in fourth.
Read more about the event:
ICC Mediation Week - ICC - International Chamber of Commerce
Auckland University wins ICC Mediation Competition - ICC - International Chamber of Commerce
The ICC Mediation Competition Final on YouTube.