(BRIDGETOWN, October 1, 2015) -- Attorneys in St. Kitts and Nevis will receive mediation training, as part of the Canadian Government funded, Improved Access to Justice in the Caribbean (IMPACT Justice) project’s campaign to increase the use of mediation in the Caribbean region. The five-day workshop starts on October 5 at the St. Kitts-Nevis Chamber of Industry and Commerce.
IMPACT Justice, Regional Project Director, Professor Velma Newton, said that the training session is being held to enhance the attorneys’ capacity to resolve disputes through mediation.
“Currently, mediation is underutilised in the region. One of the goals of the IMPACT Justice Project is to sensitise the legal community on the benefits of mediation towards making it an integral tool in legal problem-solving for their clients,” Newton said.
She added that mediation is not a natural extension of the practice of law and attorneys need to develop the skills of mediation through specialised training.
“Although attorneys may engage in negotiation, mediation is not a natural extension of the practice of law. Because attorneys are schooled in the adversarial approach, they will require training in mediation as it is a more collaborative approach to settling disputes.”
Paul Hines, Chief Executive Officer of the Dispute Resolution Foundation out of Jamaica is facilitating the workshop. He shared that it is important to enable a stronger development of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) and more importantly mediation in the region.
“We have had a long tradition of seeing justice as a function of the courts and mediation is changing that conversation some what to say that there are other ways of looking at justice,” Hines noted.
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