Practitioners\u27 Perception of Court-Connected Mediation in Five Regions: An Empirical Study

Courts throughout the world face the challenge of designing court mediation programs to provide opportunities for party-directed reconciliation on the one hand, while ensuring access to formal legal channels on the other. In some jurisdictions, mandated programs require initial attempts at mediation, while in others, voluntary programs encourage party-selected participation. This Article explores the attitudes and perceptions of eighty-three practitioners implementing court mediation programs in five regions in order to understand the dynamics, challenges, and lessons learned from the perspectives of those directly engaged in the work of administering, representing, and mediating civil claims. Given the highly contextual nature of court mediation programs, this Article highlights achievements, challenges, and lessons learned in the implementation of mediation programs for general civil claims. The principal findings indicate that overall, from the perspective of the court mediation practitioners surveyed, practitioners report slightly higher levels of confidence in mandatory mediation programs, higher perceptions of efficiency with respect to voluntary programs, and regard voluntary and mandatory mediation programs with relatively equal perceptions of fairness. Program achievements largely depend on the functioning of the civil litigation system, the qualities and skill of the mediators, safeguards against bias, participant education, and cultural and institutional support

Facilitating Settlement at the Arbitration Table: Comparing Views on Settlement Practice Among Arbitration Practitioners in East Asia and the West

This article presents a cross cultural examination of how international arbitrators in East Asian and Western countries view the goal of settlement in international arbitration. The result of a 115 person survey and 64 follow up interviews shed light on the underlying cultural attitudes and approaches to settlement in international arbitration as practiced in diverse regions. The findings indicate that arbitration practitioner’s perceptions of the frequency of compromise decision in international arbitration demonstrate a high degree of convergence across regions. At the same time, cultural and socio-economic distinctions are reflected in varying arbitrator perceptions regarding the arbitrators’ role in settlement, whether settlement is regarded as a goal in arbitration and the types of efforts made pre-arbitration to settle disputes. In particular, arbitrators working in the East Asian region regard the goal of facilitating voluntary settlement in the context of international arbitration with greater importance and generally make greater efforts pre-arbitration to settle disputes as compared with counterparts in the West

Facilitating Settlement at the Arbitration Table: Comparing Views on Settlement Practice Among Arbitration Practitioners in East Asia and the West

This article presents a cross cultural examination of how international arbitrators in East Asian and Western countries view the goal of settlement in international arbitration. The result of a 115 person survey and 64 follow up interviews shed light on the underlying cultural attitudes and approaches to settlement in international arbitration as practiced in diverse regions. The findings indicate that arbitration practitioner’s perceptions of the frequency of compromise decision in international arbitration demonstrate a high degree of convergence across regions. At the same time, cultural and socio-economic distinctions are reflected in varying arbitrator perceptions regarding the arbitrators’ role in settlement, whether settlement is regarded as a goal in arbitration and the types of efforts made pre-arbitration to settle disputes. In particular, arbitrators working in the East Asian region regard the goal of facilitating voluntary settlement in the context of international arbitration with greater importance and generally make greater efforts pre-arbitration to settle disputes as compared with counterparts in the West

Governing Financial Disputes in China: What Have We Learned From the Global Financial Crisis of 2008?

In light of the recent global financial crisis of 2008, this article critically compares how China\u27s national arbitration commissions and local courts are responding to new challenges brought about by an increase in the number of banking related disputes. Drawing on comparative case analysis, the article examines the operation of the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC) and the Shanghai Courts\u27 financial dispute resolution mechanisms in resolving financial disputes. Drawing on insights from selected case findings, it provides insight into which institution is best positioned to handle financial-related cases, discusses prospects for coordination between the two, and sets out proposals for further reform. Initial findings suggest that given CIETAC\u27s limited exposure to banking and financial-sector disputes, in the immediate term, parties should seek resolution through local financial division dispute resolution mechanisms, such as the financial division of the Shanghai Courts. In the long term, prospects for greater strengthening of national mechanisms such as CIETAC and the Securities Dispute Resolution scheme will provide additional avenues of recourse

Alternative Dispute Resolution Design in Financial Markets—Some More Equal Than Others: Hong Kong\u27s Proposed Financial Dispute Resolution Center in the Context of the Experience in the United Kingdom, United States, Australia, and Singapore

Systems of financial dispute resolution currently operate in most major financial centers throughout the world. As such systems expand and develop to address a growing number of finance-related disputes, they must inevitably address the question of their role and function in financial market regulation. Such questions are rooted in the larger socio-legal dispute processing debate examining how institutional dispute resolution mechanisms effectively regulate the repeat player knowledge/power gap through appropriate policies and procedures. Using the example of Hong Kong in comparison with financial dispute resolution models currently in existence in the United Kingdom, Australia, Singapore, and the United States, this article finds that the appropriateness of a dispute resolution method is arguably informed by whether it takes on a regulatory or non-regulatory role. Regulatory dispute resolution modes taking on inquisitorial elements may be preferred when displacing the judicial function as they incorporate safeguards for disputants against the discretion of the third party intervener. But even for non-regulatory schemes, inquisitorial elements aimed at addressing the power/knowledge gap including suggesting the provision of information regarding relevant standards and rules, at least as touchstones, may still be incorporated into consensual models of dispute resolution, which aim to ensure a de minimis level of equity and fairness in the process

Repositioning of the global epicentre of non-optimal cholesterol

High blood cholesterol is typically considered a feature of wealthy western countries(1,2). However, dietary and behavioural determinants of blood cholesterol are changing rapidly throughout the world(3) and countries are using lipid-lowering medications at varying rates. These changes can have distinct effects on the levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and non-HDL cholesterol, which have different effects on human health(4,5). However, the trends of HDL and non-HDL cholesterol levels over time have not been previously reported in a global analysis. Here we pooled 1,127 population-based studies that measured blood lipids in 102.6 million individuals aged 18 years and older to estimate trends from 1980 to 2018 in mean total, non-HDL and HDL cholesterol levels for 200 countries. Globally, there was little change in total or non-HDL cholesterol from 1980 to 2018. This was a net effect of increases in low- and middle-income countries, especially in east and southeast Asia, and decreases in high-income western countries, especially those in northwestern Europe, and in central and eastern Europe. As a result, countries with the highest level of non-HDL cholesterol-which is a marker of cardiovascular riskchanged from those in western Europe such as Belgium, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Malta in 1980 to those in Asia and the Pacific, such as Tokelau, Malaysia, The Philippines and Thailand. In 2017, high non-HDL cholesterol was responsible for an estimated 3.9 million (95% credible interval 3.7 million-4.2 million) worldwide deaths, half of which occurred in east, southeast and south Asia. The global repositioning of lipid-related risk, with non-optimal cholesterol shifting from a distinct feature of high-income countries in northwestern Europe, north America and Australasia to one that affects countries in east and southeast Asia and Oceania should motivate the use of population-based policies and personal interventions to improve nutrition and enhance access to treatment throughout the world.Peer reviewe

Height and body-mass index trajectories of school-aged children and adolescents from 1985 to 2019 in 200 countries and territories: a pooled analysis of 2181 population-based studies with 65 million participants

Summary Background Comparable global data on health and nutrition of school-aged children and adolescents are scarce. We aimed to estimate age trajectories and time trends in mean height and mean body-mass index (BMI), which measures weight gain beyond what is expected from height gain, for school-aged children and adolescents. Methods For this pooled analysis, we used a database of cardiometabolic risk factors collated by the Non-Communicable Disease Risk Factor Collaboration. We applied a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate trends from 1985 to 2019 in mean height and mean BMI in 1-year age groups for ages 5–19 years. The model allowed for non-linear changes over time in mean height and mean BMI and for non-linear changes with age of children and adolescents, including periods of rapid growth during adolescence. Findings We pooled data from 2181 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight in 65 million participants in 200 countries and territories. In 2019, we estimated a difference of 20 cm or higher in mean height of 19-year-old adolescents between countries with the tallest populations (the Netherlands, Montenegro, Estonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina for boys; and the Netherlands, Montenegro, Denmark, and Iceland for girls) and those with the shortest populations (Timor-Leste, Laos, Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea for boys; and Guatemala, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Timor-Leste for girls). In the same year, the difference between the highest mean BMI (in Pacific island countries, Kuwait, Bahrain, The Bahamas, Chile, the USA, and New Zealand for both boys and girls and in South Africa for girls) and lowest mean BMI (in India, Bangladesh, Timor-Leste, Ethiopia, and Chad for boys and girls; and in Japan and Romania for girls) was approximately 9–10 kg/m2. In some countries, children aged 5 years started with healthier height or BMI than the global median and, in some cases, as healthy as the best performing countries, but they became progressively less healthy compared with their comparators as they grew older by not growing as tall (eg, boys in Austria and Barbados, and girls in Belgium and Puerto Rico) or gaining too much weight for their height (eg, girls and boys in Kuwait, Bahrain, Fiji, Jamaica, and Mexico; and girls in South Africa and New Zealand). In other countries, growing children overtook the height of their comparators (eg, Latvia, Czech Republic, Morocco, and Iran) or curbed their weight gain (eg, Italy, France, and Croatia) in late childhood and adolescence. When changes in both height and BMI were considered, girls in South Korea, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and some central Asian countries (eg, Armenia and Azerbaijan), and boys in central and western Europe (eg, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, and Montenegro) had the healthiest changes in anthropometric status over the past 3·5 decades because, compared with children and adolescents in other countries, they had a much larger gain in height than they did in BMI. The unhealthiest changes—gaining too little height, too much weight for their height compared with children in other countries, or both—occurred in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, New Zealand, and the USA for boys and girls; in Malaysia and some Pacific island nations for boys; and in Mexico for girls. Interpretation The height and BMI trajectories over age and time of school-aged children and adolescents are highly variable across countries, which indicates heterogeneous nutritional quality and lifelong health advantages and risks