Quality professional standards for mediators, both in Australia and overseas, have largely focused on minimum standards required for accreditation of practitioners and the ongoing maintenance or practice standards. The implications of this approach for quality vary, as the entry hurdle can be...

Mediation is increasingly employed in the international and domestic context to support agreement-making and to manage to resolve conflict. Practitioners and participants in such processes may not have clearly defined obligations and may not be subject to any systemic or other controls. As a...

Justice, like beauty, may also be in the eye of the beholder. For some individuals, whether or not an outcome, process and system are 'just' will depend on what is expected, available and perceived. From a societal perspective, however, the definition of 'justice' and determining the reach of...

Some articulations of the ‘multi-door' justice concept have assumed that the court is at the epicentre of the justice system and is critical in the context of dispute resolution referral. In recent decades, there has been a shift in how courts and conceptualized within the justice system and...

Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) is an expanding and evolving area - some regard it as a field, some as a profession and some view it as an industry. As leaders in conflict resolution education, practice and research, one of our fundamental objectives is to add to the pool of knowledge in...

Achieving a National Mediator Accreditation System has been a project that has taken many years within Australia. It has taken the concerted efforts of industry based organisations, professional membership groups, government and non government agencies, educators, researchers, consumers and...

Effectively designed complaint handling systems play a key role in enabling vulnerable consumers to complain and obtain redress. This article examines current research into consumer vulnerability, highlighting its multidimensional and expansive nature. Contemporary understandings of consumer...

This project is designed to explore ways of more effectively tracking both the tangible and intangible costs and benefits of Customer Complaint Management, thereby enabling the calculation of a meaningful Return on Investment. This outcome will inform how organisations should effectively address...