Samenvatting

This article provides a preliminary analysis of the 622 responses to a questionnaire conducted in the context of Maryam Salehijam’s PhD research which focuses on commercial parties’ agreement to mediate/conciliate. The questionnaire targeted ADR professionals and experts with experience in drafting, inserting, or enforcing dispute resolution clauses that provide for non-binding ADR mechanisms. Some of the key findings include that it is still not very common for commercial contracts to conclude agreements to mediate/conciliate. This begs the question of why the parties and/or their legal advisors do not conclude such agreements as regularly as agreements to arbitrate. Moreover, the questionnaire confirmed that there is widespread practice in contract drafting to copy and paste dispute resolution clauses. This practice is shocking in light of the rising number of cases in which the parties dis­agree regarding the binding nature of their dispute resolution clause.