Democracy
issuesof
E
LECTRONIC
J
OURNALSOFTHE
U.S.D
EPARTMENTOF
S
TATE
D
ECEMBER
1999
V
OLUME
4
N
UMBER
3
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E D I AT I O NA N DT H E
C
O U RT S
I
T IS A PROBLEM
in most parts of theglobe—the increasing expense of litigation andovercrowded court dockets. Various measureshave been adopted to deal with this situationin the United States and elsewhere. One of the most important is mediation, sometimesreferred to as alternate or alternative disputeresolution. There are various forms of media-tion, but typically the procedure involves a con-sensual, out-of-court settlement that is muchless costly and time-consuming than cases sentto trial.The proponents of mediation, however,advocate the procedure not only because iteases court backlogs but also because it servesthe interests of justice in and of itself, mostsaliently some types of civil disputes—every-thing from family disagreements to ethnic strife.In recent years, mediation—court-supervisedmediation in particular—has become morecommonplace in the United States and, in manystates, the procedure is becoming increasinglystandard practice.This journal looks at mediation in generalas well as the various trends that may accountfor its growing popularity. In the opening arti-cle, Hiram Chodosh, a law professor and direc-tor of the Frederick K. Cox International LawCenter at Case Western Reserve UniversitySchool of Law, explores the diverse features of mediation and how it can be tailored to meet theneeds of nations with widely different culturesand traditions.Robert A. Goodin, president of the boardof directors of the Institute for the Study andDevelopment of Legal Systems, deals with prag-matic questions in his overview article on medi-ation. He looks at the specifics of the processand shows how it has reduced the burden of expensive litigation in the U.S., a country inwhich the costs of justice have skyrocketed inrecent years.
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From the Editors
Mediation and the Courts
Mediation is becoming increasingly prev-alent in the United States both in the privatesector and the public sector, as well as in courtsystems at various levels of government. PeterR. Steenland, Jr., senior counsel at the Office of Dispute Resolution in the U.S. Department of Justice, examines the role of mediation in thefederal court system and the importance of suchconcepts as confidentiality.Florida was one of the first states in thenation to develop systematic mediation proce-dures, including an ethical code for mediators.In an interview with Contributing Editor DavidPitts, Dr. Don Peters, director of both the Institutefor Dispute Resolution and the Virgil HawkinsCivil Law Clinic at the University of Florida,talks about the challenges of implementingmediation in the courts, particularly at the statelevel, and the kind of resources necessary tohelp ensure an effective system.In the concluding article, ContributingEditor David Pitts looks at a case study involv-ing mediation—African American farmers v. theDepartment of Agriculture. At the time the medi-ated settlement was approved by a federal judgein early 1999, this was the most significant civilrights case ever to go to mediation and may seta precedent for avoiding long and costly courtbattles in the U.S. in future civil rights cases.
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