Ethical Standards for Arbitrators and Mediators

Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject Law - Comparative Legal Systems, Comparative Law, grade: D - good, Bond University Australia (Law School), course: International Commercial Arbitration, language: English, abstract: While the discussion about vocational standards continues, numerous associations have drafted competence and ethical standards for either mediators or arbitrators as well as for both procedural methods. Ethical standards focus more on the procedural process and the duties and virtues of the leader of the procedure than on the occupational competence standardization, such as codes of practice, benchmarks, agreements, models and exemplars which are the 'classical' forms of standards for practices.5 Codes of practice determine the vocational rules of a profession, which may contain penalty regulations for misconduct. Benchmarks are a set of options which orient on successful approaches which have been proved in a certain professional field. Agreements focus on the 'Agreement to Mediate' which the parties voluntarily agree on when using ADR. Models are preconceived rules or assessing criteria, which can be adopted to centralize the standardization approach. Exemplars are the collection and evaluation of successful ADR cases, which can be optionally awarded.6 Predominantly, ethical standards appear as an appendix of codes of practice, wherein certain etiquettes, virtues and qualities of the procedural leader are determined. 5 NADRAC, A Framework for ADR Standards, p. 52-55. 6 NADRAC, A Framework for ADR Standards, p. 52-55.