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Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution

Mediating Globally

How to Prevent and Resolve Social, Economic, Political, and Cross-Cultural Conflicts at Their Systemic Sources, Both Locally and Globally

Faculty:  Ken Cloke and Anna Spain

COURSE CANCELLED!  - Due to unforeseen scheduling problems, Ken Cloke is not able to teach.  Ken Cloke and Anna Spain are scheduled to teach next year on June 20-22, 2013. 

How are seemingly local disputes like family, workplace, and commercial disputes impacted by global issues like war, stereotyping, and financial crisis? Can we apply conflict-resolution principles to the systemic inequalities, inequities, and dysfunctions that fuel chronic conflicts both locally and beyond our borders? Can mediators help to prevent and resolve these disputes at their chronic source? Can we redesign the structures, processes, institutions, and cultures that trigger these conflicts, both locally and globally? What is our responsibility as dispute resolvers for the social, economic, political, and cross-cultural conflicts that are taking place every day in the world around us? How can mediators and dispute resolution practitioners build transnational resolution principles into our practice? And how do we bring these changes about without recreating the very problems we seek to solve? This session will analyze the role mediators can play in helping to resolve chronic systemic conflicts, and identify ways of acting locally and globally to build conflict-resolution capacity and help create a “conflict revolution.”

What you will learn:

  • Identify the chronic, systemic sources of global conflicts and what they have in common
  • Learn ways of responding effectively to the chronic, systemic sources of conflict on all scales
  • Develop techniques and strategies that can make a difference in resolving these disputes
  • Develop skills in international and cross-cultural mediation
  • Learn methods for creating public dialogues over difficult and dangerous issues
  • Design solutions for systemic and cross-cultural conflicts using mediation, negotiation, dialogue, coaching, problem solving, facilitation, conflict-resolution systems design, and similar methods
  • Develop the skills needed to mediate across social, economic, political, and cultural boundaries
  • Develop the skills needed to work between cultures both locally and on an international scale
  • Develop a framework for understanding diverse cultures and global change efforts
  • Develop techniques and strategies that can make a difference in reducing prejudice, becoming more aware of bias and stereotyping, and resolving diversity-based conflicts
  • Explore ways of celebrating social, economic, political, and cultural diversity
  • Develop strategies and action plans for transforming conflict on a global scale and creating a “conflict revolution”

Kenneth Cloke, JD, LLM, PhD, is director of the Center for Dispute Resolution in Santa Monica, California, and a mediator, arbitrator, coach, consultant, and trainer. He is the author of Mediating Dangerously: The Frontiers of Conflict Resolution; Resolving Conflicts at Work: Ten Strategies for Everyone on the Job; Resolving Personal and Organizational Conflicts: Stories of Transformation and Forgiveness; The Crossroads of Conflict: A Journey into the Heart of Conflict; and Conflict Revolution: Mediating Evil, War, Injustice, and Terrorism. He is a founder and past president of Mediators Beyond Borders, and has worked in over 20 countries.

Anna Spain is an associate professor of Law at the University of Colorado Law School where she specializes in international law and dispute resolution. She previously practiced international law as an attorney-adviser at the U.S. Department of State Office of the Legal Adviser. Spain has been a certified mediator for over 17 years. She earned her JD from Harvard Law School and is a member of the American Bar Association, the American Society of International Law, the Council on Foreign Relations, and Mediators Beyond Borders.