ABSTRACT
The wheels of information exchange and learning that the mediator activates, motivate the negotiation process through its developmental progress towards settlement. Ideally, the arena should provide a calm, safe and neutral forum for negotiation – free of coercion, free of stigma, and free of confusion with other interventions. The messages passing between them are intended not to influence or shift the other but to explore the dimensions of the field within which further negotiations are to occur. An invaluable processual analysis of negotiation and mediation, derived from empirical research in the sphere of labour relations in the United States and in dispute resolution processes in East Africa respectively, is described in the work of Stevens and of Gulliver. The procedural flexibility of mediation also allows the requirements of full and accurate disclosure, necessary for the mediation of financial and property matters, to be accommodated. Models of practice embody structural features that frame the mediation process.
