Mediation is becoming ever more important in French law. For a long time, parties have been able to agree to mediate to avoid expensive and long legal proceedings. Recent reforms have extended the scope of mediation. The courts can ask parties to try and mediate, and in some areas of law, for instance disputes about less than € 5000, mediation has even become a prerequisite for being able to file a case. Whilst mediation is thus playing an important role in everyday disputes, national regulation for mediators is lagging behind. There are no thorough universal standards for mediators and there is no central disciplinary board, even though mediators’ organizations have been creating such professional rules and institutions. It is likely the advent of a mandatory attempt at mediation will lead the French legislator to adopt more universal rules for mediation.

This is a letter written by Brigitte Chin-A-Fat to the late Peter Hoefnagels, who was one of the Dutch pioneers in the field of divorce mediation and a professor of criminology and family law at Erasmus University Rotterdam. In 1997, TMD published an article from his hand in which he wrote how he had become inspired by the potential of divorce mediation and about his (first) experiences with this ‘new’ mode of dispute resolution in family disputes. The original article by Peter Hoefnagels, dating from 1997, is reproduced in 2021 in TMD in view of its relevance today and precedes the letter by Brigitte Chin-A-Fat.
Hoefnagels invented the so-called ‘divorce announcement’ and introduced psychology to the legal world of divorce and family mediation. Anno 2021, there are many (legal) developments which are bound to have an impact on the reform of Dutch divorce procedure.
The Dutch government has set up pilot projects experimenting with inter alia a ‘joint access’ to the family court. Many of these developments are in line with Hoefnagels’ suggestions to avoid harm being inflicted on the ex-spouses and notably their children to the largest extent possible. The author discusses some of the current pilot projects and connects the rationale underlying these experiments to Hoefnagels’ ideas as presented 25 years ago. She also looks into the future, notably which changes are likely to occur in the next 25 years in the field of divorce mediation.

This year, 2021, TMD has reached a milestone: its 25th volume. To celebrate this event, the issues to be published this year will highlight what has been achieved over the past 25 years, in mediation practice, and in respect of scientific knowledge on the various modes of dispute resolution. The question which targets to set for the future, will equally be addressed.
Geographically, the focus of this first issue is on the Netherlands, whereas the third issue will be addressing developments in Belgium. The fourth issue this year will highlight international developments, ranging from the USA to China. The second issue will be a special surprise for our subscribers.
The present issue, dealing with the Netherlands, starts with a tribute to the pioneer of family mediation in this country, the late professor Peter Hoefnagels. His original article, published in the very first volume of TMD (1997) and reproduced here in its entirety, describes his own experience when pioneering divorce mediation from 1974 onwards. In 1997, the year of original publication, mediation was not yet widely acknowledged nor embraced. Brigitte Chin-A-Fat responds to Peter Hoefnagels through a personal letter following his article, reassuring the great pioneer that 25 years further on, mediation has become well established in the family domain.
The issue continues with three interviews, organized by editors Roger Ritzen and/or Rob Jagtenberg, with individuals who have (sometimes inadvertently) become leading authorities in the field.
Steve Whittaker, an English solicitor who moved to the Netherlands in 1988 to work in the construction industry and became inspired by the use of ADR in Hongkong, became the founder of the Netherlands Mediation Institute (NMI), in the mid 1990s. For 20 years, NMI was the umbrella structure for (almost) all mediators in the Netherlands and the interface between the mediation community and government. Compared with those early years, today, interests seem to diverge increasingly, at the risk of fragmentation.
The second interview is with former President of the Court of Appeal in Arnhem, Ms. Machteld Pel. For many years, she spearheaded the Dutch national research program on court-referred mediation, thereby acting as the trait-d’union between the judiciary and the mediation community. Judges who were sceptics at first, often became interested after having taken the special training courses co-designed by Machteld Pel. Her book ‘Referral to Mediation’, which is packed with checklists and practical tips for formulating questions, has become a genuine classic.
The interview with Fred Schonewille takes the reader to the past decade in particular. Fred Schonewille has been the driving force behind various proposals for mediation legislation, aiming to secure a more prominent place for mediation, while improving professional quality standards. The Netherlands and Belgium constitute contrasting cases, where in the Netherlands legislation proposals were hitherto torpedoed, whereas Belgium has comprehensive legislation in place for some time now.
Fred Schonewille has also pioneered premarital mediation and new varieties of mediation in the domain of family-owned companies. Some fascinating insights gained in these areas are also shared in this third interview.
This first issue in the special year 2021 is concluded by two smaller contributions; in the first of these, Médiation à la française, Paris-based Dutch lawyer-mediators Marinka Schillings and Thom Verkuilen provide an overview of recent developments in France. Legislative action as well as some recent research outcomes are addressed. The second of the smaller contributions highlights a conference organized by a professorial team from the Radboud University in Nijmegen, addressing the position of the judge vis-a-vis various modes of dispute resolution. The proceedings of the conference will be published as a book later this year.

Pursuant to Article 1727, § 2, 5 of the Belgian Judicial Code, the federal mediation commission, which manages the mediation process in Belgium, must draw up a code of ethics. After drawing up a code of conduct in 2007, she recently developed a new code of ethics on 16 December 2020. The main lines of this code of ethics are discussed in this contribution.

In this article the authors summarize the current position of tax mediation in the Netherlands and pay attention to several differences between mediation in Belgium and the Netherlands. They also outline the recent developments in order to the proposed mediation legislation and the options for using mediation in tax fraud cases. Mediation legislation could be the incentive that tax mediation needs.

With this article Patrick Van Leynseele would like to briefly outline:

1. that the Code creates an overly exaggerated regulation of mediation and is unjustly interfering in various areas with the way in which the mediators should operate;

2. that the Code permits only one (in his opinion far too narrow) form of mediation through a regulation of deontology, in particular, in short, the purely facilitating approach; this while one of the roles of the FBC is to promote all forms of mediation as well as other forms of dispute settlement (art. 1727§ 2, 12 ° Judicial Code);

3. that there are a number of things in the Code that are useless, because they are already written in law and that the FBC wanted to give the Code some form of educational purpose that does not belong in a code of ethics;

4. that a number of aspects of the intervention of mediators could have been given their place in the Code but cannot be found in it;

5. to end with questioning what is ultimately allowed or not allowed.

Schools are tasked with helping children to become socially competent(er), both in the on- and offline world. If conflicts occur, schools find out how they can tackle this behaviour and prevent it in the future. Schools cover various tracks here. More and more schools have understood that they can actively involve children and young people in their preventive and problem-solving approach. They integrate methodologies and programmes that give children and young people the opportunity to take responsibility when a conflict occurs. Some of these methods and programmes are looked at more closely in this article. The article concludes with a future-oriented dream that responds to some current educational needs.

Implementing a restorative policy is a difficult job for schools. In schools based on sanctions teachers need to know the rules, but in schools based on restorative justice everyone, especially students, understands the rules and believes in them. The relation has priority. Such a school needs a vision on the restorative method for parents, teachers and students to solve unacceptable behaviour and conflicts. It focuses on self-discipline instead of discipline.

In this article the authors describe briefly the legal aspects of liquidation of an estate and the alternative way of mediation. Besides that they investigate what should better be done before the estate will be liquidated. It turns out that also in that case the facilitation of mediation is a wise choice.

In 1976 the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, about corporate social responsibility and sustainability, were carried. To implement the guidelines national contact points inform people and enterprises, and mediate in case of a complaint. This article describes the structure, procedure and role of the Dutch and Belgian National Contact Points.

Luc Vanheeswijck summarizes the current position of tax mediation in Belgium and outlines the differences between the Belgian and Dutch mediation method in fiscal matters. He also outlines the differences between mediation in tax matters and ‘classic’ mediation. He concludes that Belgian tax mediation is not mediation as is commonly understood. The article closes on a description of the results of de ‘Fiscale Bemiddelingsdienst’ (the Fiscal Mediation Service).