MEDIATION. MEASURING THE SUCCESS OF MEDIATION

Mediation is now an established and expanding way of dispute resolution in a growing number of practice fields: family, community, victim-offender, civil and commercial matters, environment and labour, to name but a few. The number of mediations is rising each day and so, the number of people involved in it. 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. Is this increased number of mediations succesfull? How do we know that the outcome of the mediation process meets the criteria of success? How can we evaluate it? This article will present the author's point of view about the factors influencing a succesful mediation, concluding with a presentation of what are considered to be the most important qualities of a succesful mediator.