Page 28 RAIN February/March 1983 PEACEMAIQNG: Alternative Methods of Dispute Resolution By Steve Johnson The nuclear weapons build-up has dramatically underlined our need to explore alternative dispute resolution methods. Although the reasons for the build-up, and the possible solutions, are complex, we are not helpless. We can learn more about conflicts and disputes — from two children fighting over their share of things, neighbors struggling over solar access, or in the drama of small claims court, to the global struggles between corporations, governments, and other invested individuals and organizations over natural resources. We can seek to find ways for resolving conflicts before they get out of hand with methods that can best create win-win situations. Fortunately, there are models for alternative dispute resolution, and a knowledge base that has been expanding over the last decade. Mediation is used most frequently in the United States to settle disputes between labor and management. Starting with the Roosevelt Administration in the 1930s, labor/ management mediation has been institutionalized by the U.S. Labor Uttice as a specific process that labor and management are to follow to resolve conflict. In its simplest form, mediation is a voluntary process by which those involved in a dispute jointly explore and reconcile their differences. The mediator assigned to the conflict has no authority to impose a settlement. The mediated dispute is settled when the parties themselves reach what they consider to be a workable solution. In the real world of disputes between individuals and other parties, mediation is most likely an alternative to lengthy/costly court litigation, and in fact as some professional mediators note, it might not be used at all if the threat of litigation didn't force people to use mediation techniques. The Institute for Environmental Mediation has provided mediation services to parties in dispute over facility-siting, resource management, and environmental regulation since 1975. The Institute has five mediators in its headquarters in Seattle, two in a regional office in Madison, Wisconsin; and one in a field office in southern California. Funded Primarily by the Ford and Richard K. Mellon Foundations, the Institute provides mediators, usually at no cost to participants, to help disputing parties negotiate their differences. Their record over the years is quite impressive. In 1981 they helped resolve differences in several places. Some of the conflicts mediated were the Briones Park Dispute, a long standing dispute in northern California over access to and development of a major regional park; the Queets Sewer Lagoon Dispute, a dispute in Washington state between a tribe, the local government, private interests, and federal agencies, over arrangements for the protection of a sewage treatment facility; and the Homestake Pitch Mine Dispute in Colorado, where the Homestake Corporation and seven environmental organizations reached an agreement settling their differences over the operation and reclamation of an open-pit uranium mine in the Gunnison National Forest. Verne Huser, a mediator with the Institute, summarized the current state of environmental conflict resolutions and the altemahve being developed through negotiation techniques: "Environmental mediation is a relatively new concept — even though this office and its predecessor have been successfully practicing the concept for eight years — and people don't know enough about it to trust it as much as they seem to trust the courts. Yet almost invariably the courts fail to address the real issues of environmental disputes. One party grabs another by the Environmental Impact Statement, a largely technical document, because it's the only handle available, but the real issues may not be technical at all (more often they are social or environmental). And the case will frequently be decided on a
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