A Developing Mediation Minnow: The South African Perspective

Abstract

AbstractThe shift in South Africa from the adversarial mode of resolving disputes to one embracing modes of alternative dispute resolution has been slow compared to the emergence of mediation on the international legal stage. There is no single, general, statute that regulates mediation in South Africa. There are, however, various statutes that operate in different contexts that, in some way or another, make reference to mediation as an alternative dispute resolution process. Mediation in South Africa denotes a flexible concept and, consequently, one that is difficult to define. The concept connotes a different meaning to different users in different South African contexts. Although mediation has generally been slow to take off in South Africa, in employment law mediation has been and continues to be a successful, institutionalised, dispute resolution method. Further, court-annexed mediation rules were recently published and the Department of Justice and Correctional Services will be launching court-annexed mediation at pilot site courts across the country on 1 December 2014. This chapter provides a South African perspective on mediation and will focus on various issues related to mediation in South Africa such as the mediation agreement, the mediator, the mediation process, mediation costs, success and failure of mediation, cross-border mediation and so forth.KeywordsDispute ResolutionInformation Communication TechnologyMediation ProcessAlternative Dispute ResolutionSouthern African Development CommunityThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.