Mediation Ethics: An Exploration of Four Seminal Texts

The subject of mediator ethics is often conflated with discussions about standards of practice, the appropriate wording of codes of conduct, or forms of practitioner regulation. These discussions sometimes also extend to debates about practice dilemmas, such as conflicts of interest, voluntariness, confidentiality and stakeholder issues. The main purpose of this paper is instead to discuss the importance and problems of the differing ethical principles which, I argue, underlie four seminal and popular Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) books. These texts are in current circulation, although some have been republished as later editions since first appearing.

They are often used-either separately or combinedas reference materials in mediator training programs. They are also widely cited by other authors in a canon too extensive to cite here, and each book has, in its own way, achieved considerable status and practitioner influence. The selected texts are listed below, in order of their first edition publication dates.