In companies people work together intensively, especially in family run companies. In such a situation, the interests (income, capital and employment) can be enormous when parties fail to live up to each others expectations.How to deal with situations when parties are in a dead-lock and the continuity of the business is at stake? Depending on the legal form of the company and the type of conflict, there are different legal actions to settle a (legal) conflict. However, there are so many rules and different procedures for each type of legal form, that it may dazzle the reader. Moreover, these procedures may take a long time, while the parties in a family dead-lock desire an expert/arbiter/mediator proceeding expeditiously.In a sense a marriage is also a family run company. The following experiences from the area of family law are described: the processes of a divorce, the break-up announcement (the opposite of the marriage proposal), the experiment in court with the so-called regierechter in family cases, the prenuptial agreement and the plan for parenthood after a divorce. Our conclusion is that in case of a dead-lock, parties need to have a good set of rules on the settlement of disputes, to find a qualified expert/arbiter/mediator having knowledge and experience in financial/tax/pension/legal matters and familiar with dealing with emotions in a deadlock.

In their contribution ‘Employment and ICMS’, Rob Jagtenberg and Annie de Roo discuss the yields that an integrated conflict management system may bring to individual workers, to the company or organisation, and to society as a whole. Few organisations have adopted ICMS as yet. Therefore, the authors analyse the resistance against introduction of ICMS in some detail, especially resistance on the part of management, which likely will be decisive.Recent developments in the world economy and in politics however, may change the leverage in favour of introducing ICMS still, in the years to come.

In 2008, Ruud Lubbers led a mediation process to resolve the conflicts which had arisen between two Dutch campaigning organisations, various Indian non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and labour unions, two Dutch internet providers, an Indian clothing producer and a Dutch jeans brand. The mediation took place at the request of the disagreeing parties and the Dutch and Indian governments. The conflict related to corporate social responsibility (CSR) standards followed by the textile companies.In this contribution the effects of campaigning and litigating in issues concerning CSR will be examined. Limiting the analysis to CSR conflicts in the textile industry, the author will reflect on these new types of international conflicts in a globalising world and will share her view on appropriate ways to avoid them or, ultimately, to (re)mediate them if necessary.This contribution informs the reader about the events in India and the Netherlands which led to the escalation of the conflict. It provides an overview of the conflict resolution procedures and elaborates on the outcome of the ‘Lubbers Mediation’. The applicable legal and soft law labour standards are compared as well as the parties’ communication strategies. Lastly, this case is contrasted with other CSR conflicts in the textile industry, revealing a hidden conflict.

In this contribution the focus is on whether mediation, as it is practiced today, can be regarded as a profession and if so, whether it belongs to the ‘new’ or ‘old’ professions. In an attempt to answer this question the structure of the body of knowledge and the predictability of the outcomes of the application of that body of knowledge are discussed.