mediation

mediation, a practice under which, in a conflict, the services of a third party are utilized to reduce the differences or to seek a solution. Mediation differs from “good offices” in that the mediator usually takes more initiative in proposing terms of settlement. It differs from arbitration in that the opposing parties are not bound by prior agreement to accept the suggestions made.

In many countries there are standard procedures for mediating industrial disputes. In labour disputes, if the conflict does not fall within a labour-management agreement, or if it exceeds the capacity of such machinery to settle, the government usually provides a mediator. The U.S. federal government (as well as many U.S. state and local governments) and the majority of the governments of western Europe maintain labour mediation or conciliation services. In the great majority of situations in which labour mediation agencies have been created by a governmental unit, these agencies have the power to intervene in a dispute when in their judgment the public interest is threatened.

Mediation procedures are less fully developed in international conflicts, though there are several examples of successful mediation from as early as the 19th century: for example, of Great Britain in 1825 between Portugal and Brazil; of the great powers in 1868–69 between Greece and Turkey when relations were strained over Crete; and of Pope Leo XIII in 1885 between Germany and Spain in the matter of the Caroline Islands. Further important moves toward creating mediation machinery were made in the Hague conventions of 1899 and 1907 and in the League of Nations Covenant. Under the Charter of the United Nations, especially, members assumed a much larger obligation than heretofore to settle their disputes in a peaceful manner. Article 2, paragraph 3, states inter alia that all members “shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means.” Under Article 33 the parties to any dispute likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security are enjoined first to “seek a solution by negotiation, inquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements or other peaceful means of their own choice.” Should they fail to settle it by these means, they are called upon under Article 37 to refer it to the Security Council. The Council, or the General Assembly if the dispute is referred to it, then undertakes the form of settlement that it believes suited to the particular case.

Following discussion in the Council or in the Assembly, the dispute may be submitted to mediation. In May 1948, for instance, the General Assembly appointed a mediator in Palestine. In the winter and spring of 1949 a later appointee was able to conclude armistice agreements between Israel and the four neighbouring Arab states. Several commissions appointed by the Security Council and by the General Assembly have had mediatory functions: for example, the commission on Indonesia, the India-Pakistan commission, the Palestine conciliation commission, and the commission on Korea. The secretaries-general, especially Dag Hammarskjöld, have exercised a great deal of personal diplomacy that can be characterized as mediatory.