Mediation Success or Failure: A Search for the Elusive Criteria

Authors

Jacob Bercovitch, University of Canterbury

Abstract

One of the central issues in the field of conflict resolution concerns the degree to which we can define a mediated or negotiated outcome as successful. How do we know that an outcome meets the criteria of success? How can we evaluate it? For example, how would we define the conclusion of the Camp David talks, where President Carter so ably mediated between the parties, and which produced a historic agreement between Israel and Egypt in 1978? Was that ground-breaking agreement successful? There will be as many opinions on that as there are commentators, but few will stop and think carefully about what it means to be successful at mediation or negotiation or how to recognize that success. Or to take another example, the Oslo talks which culminated in the signing of another historic agreement, this time between Israel and the PLO. Were the talks successful? Here, again, we may have as many different opinions as there are commentators. Clearly, we need to think more carefully about what constitutes a successful outcome, how to recognize it, and which factors may affect it. That is what I propose to do in this Article.

Disciplines

Dispute Resolution and Arbitration | Environmental Law | Law | Legal Profession

Recommended Citation

Jacob Bercovitch, Mediation Success or Failure: A Search for the Elusive Criteria, 7 Cardozo J. Conflict Resol. 289 (2006).
Available at: https://larc.cardozo.yu.edu/cjcr/vol7/iss2/5