CRI Director’s Comments

For too long we have asked when will our profession ever be able to speak out in ways that maintain our professionalism, and credibility and perception of objectivity and neutrality? When will we speak out about something that is really wrong?

No longer can the mediation profession and its practitioners shy from 'calling it like it is' in fear that their credibility will be tarnished. When we see community, national, and international conflict being unnecessarily destructive we must speak up professionally, accurately and effectively to provide helpful information, and to promote effective negotiation and mediation. We are neither promoting any specific agendas not particular mediators. We’re promoting the professions of negotiation and mediation; we don’t care who does it as long as it is done well.

The principles, processes and skills that constitute negotiation and mediation are neither anemic nor passive. It’s our job to encourage, indeed to lead disputants to consider effective negotiation and mediation options to satisfy their own interests and those of others. In doing so, we also have to assist them in considering the costs and consequences of protracted conflicts or actual impasse.

The International Coalition of Concerned Mediators (ICCM) have a message: “We as nations -- as people, communities and organizations -- must realize that the persons or groups across the table from us are not our enemies but are the partners whom we are seeking to resolve, manage and resolve conflict. We need to be conscious of how we treat our partners.”

-William F. Lincoln CRI Executive Director

www.cri.cc