Look who’s (not) talking: The use of mediation in medical negligence claims in Ireland

This paper looks at why mediation is not more widely used in medical negligence claims in Ireland. It is based on research, undertaken in connection with an MA in Mediation and Conflict Intervention at Maynooth University, during which eight solicitors working in the field of medical negligence shared their experience and perspectives on the use of mediation in this area. The research finds that mediation is in use but only as part of the convoluted litigation system and the style used is focused on the legal interests of the parties rather than any emotional needs. The Irish State has introduced some measures to facilitate the use of mediation but there is no coherent strategy and low public awareness. Legislative changes to streamline the litigation system are on the way, but if the parties’ needs and interests are to be served, a more facilitative, people-centred mediation style should be adopted, supported by a coherent, government sponsored, restorative justice strategy.

Whose program is this? Negotiations in designing a student-initiated and student-led Jewish-Arab/Palestinian dialogue program on campus

This research examines the Nice 2 Meet U intervention program which, unlike other programs promoting dialogue between Arab/Palestinian and Jewish students on Israeli campuses, was a grassroots program initiated and moderated by students. The program was designed jointly by the initiators, the participants and the researcher/advisor using action research. The objective of the current study was to describe the negotiations among all the partners with respect to a central dilemma: should the program include political discourse on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? The research proposes seeing the negotiations over designing grassroots conflict intervention programs as an arena in which the participants' academic, ethno-national and gender positions intersect and shape knowledge-power relations. Alongside the risks inherent in this process, it also offers potential for creating transformative spaces that challenge traditional patterns of power relations and encourage students to take part in changing the social atmosphere on campus.

United Nations Peacekeeping and Civil Conflict

UN peacekeeping serves as the foremost international tool for conflict intervention and peace management. Since the Cold War, these efforts have almost exclusively targeted conflicts within, rather than between, states. Where traditional peacekeeping missions sought to separate combatants and monitor peace processes across state borders, modern peacekeeping in civil wars involves a range of tasks from intervening directly in active conflicts to rebuilding political institutions and societies after the fighting ends. To accommodate this substantial change, peacekeeping operations have grown in number, size, and scope of mandate. The increasing presence and changing nature of peacekeeping has sparked great interest in understanding when and how peacekeeping is used and how effective it is in delivering and sustaining peace. Significant advances in peacekeeping data collection have allowed for a more rigorous investigation of the phenomenon, including differentiation in the objectives, tasks, and structure of a mission as well as disaggregation of the activities and impact of peacekeepers’ presence across time and space. Researchers are particularly interested in understanding the adaption of peacekeeping to the unique challenges of the civil war setting, such as intervention in active conflicts, the greater involvement and victimization of civilians, the reintegration of rebel fighters into society, and the establishment of durable political, economic, and social institutions after the fighting ends. Additional inquiries consider why the UN deploys peacekeeping to some wars and not others, how and why operations differ from one another, and how the presence of and variation across missions impacts conflict countries before and after the fighting has stopped.

DEMOCRATIC SUSTAINABILITY AND CONFLICT RESILIENCE IN GHANA’S DEMOCRATIC SYSTEM

Ghana could be described as an island of peace in an ocean of conflicts. This is because most of Ghana’s West African neighbours have experienced (and some are still experiencing) various forms of national civil conflicts which have never occurred in Ghana. In the last three decades, the West Africa sub-region has been plagued with many intra-state conflicts. In Liberia, Sierra-Leone, Côte d’Ivoire and Mali, conflicts have escalated into full scale war, bringing with it numerous loss of lives, destruction of property and causing social despair for the citizenry. The peace of some countries like Senegal, Nigeria, Niger and recently Burkina Faso also continues to be threatened by different dissident groups and popular uprisings. While most of these countries’ democracies remain fragile due to the conflicts within these states, Ghana remains one of few examples whose current democratic structures have stood the test of time for the last three decades. This study inquired into Ghana’s conflict resistance capacities and its ability to continue to sustain its democracy as a country. Mixed methods approach was employed to select 132 community residents from 3 purposefully sampled conflict-prone communities in Ghana, and 5 key informants as well as 462 political party delegates for interviewing and data collection for the study.The study found that the very nature of Ghana’s internal conflicts with respect to their geographical limitations, the conflict parties involved as well as the issues at stake contribute to confine these internal conflicts within their areas of occurrence. In addition, some conscious social and institutional measures (put in place) in the Ghanaian democratic system help to promote peace and maintain order. Finally, majority of the respondents (63.6%) were of the opinion that Ghana is unlikely to have a national civil war because its democratic institutions are effective. It was suggested that politicians should avoid interfering in local conflicts and increase coverage for peace education programmes and conflict intervention initiatives in the country, among others.

Family mediation in international child abduction cases in Ireland: One size will not fit all

This paper explores how mediation can support the legal process in international cross-border child abduction cases in Ireland. It draws on research carried out as part of requirements for a Master’s degree in mediation and conflict intervention and reports on qualitative interviews with nine professionals with experience in international child abduction cases or extensive training in this field. It explores the role of the Irish Legal Aid Board‘s family mediation service in Hague cases and concludes that a ‘one size fits all’ model is unlikely to meet the need for flexibility in such cases.