EU Cross-Border Commercial Mediation is a book which focuses on the European Union’s (EU’s) continued efforts to encourage the use of cross-border mediation and examines why such efforts have had a limited impact. It does so by drawing on rare, and at times surprising, detailed insights from the in-house counsel of multinational companies regarding their use of EU cross-border commercial mediation. By viewing mediation through the disputants’ perspective, new and important findings regarding why disputants do, and do not, use cross-border mediation have emerged. While these findings are of primary relevance to EU policy and practice, they have implications far beyond the EU context at a time of increasing international interest in cross-border mediation.

This book examines the EU’s continued initiatives to foster the use of cross-border mediation, including its review of the EU Directive on Mediation. Against this legislative backdrop, the book then rigorously analyses insights provided by the in-house counsel participants in the research conducted for this book. This analysis reveals, for example:

- the prominent role played by negotiation as a cross-border dispute resolution process;

that negotiation is a key comparator for disputants when considering whether to use mediation;

- how the EU’s continued focus on understanding and presenting mediation as an alternative to litigation has resulted in measures which are insufficient to address fully the barriers to the use of mediation;

- intriguing barriers to the use of mediation which arise from the association which disputants draw between mediation and negotiation;

- how the relationship which disputants draw between mediation and negotiation paradoxically raises both opportunities for, and obstacles to, the increased use of mediation; and

what disputants need to increase their use of cross-border mediation.

The qualitative nature (by way of interviews) of the research conducted for this book has enabled the identification of nuanced and novel findings regarding mediation’s position and potential in cross-border dispute resolution. These findings, together with a detailed examination of the EU Directive on Mediation and the EU’s continued initiatives to foster the use of mediation, form the basis upon which this book’s recommendations are built.

Changing the frame to view the use of mediation through the lens of the disputants, as this book does, provides the opportunity for the EU to promote cross-border mediation in a way which resonates with disputants and responds more fully to their concerns and needs. This thoughtful and thought-provoking book will be of interest not only to European and national bodies seeking to promote the use of mediation but also to dispute resolution academics, in-house counsel, and of course mediators and dispute resolution practitioners.