Listening to Disputants: Changing the Frame, Framing the Change

Listening to Disputants: Changing the Frame, Framing the Change Drawing on empirical evidence from interviews with experienced users of dispute resolution processes for EU cross-border commercial disputes, this article provides new insights into the reasons why parties do not use mediation. At a time when attention has returned to examining why the EU Mediation Directive has had a limited impact on the promotion of mediation in the EU, drawing on these empirical insights, this article argues for a fundamental shift in the EU’s approach to promoting mediation. Rather than an emphasis on what mediation enables disputants to avoid (namely, litigation), as has been the emphasis to date in the EU’s promotion of mediation, this article calls for a promotion of mediation which recognises what is being asked of disputants when they mediate and which thereby has the potential to be of increased resonance with potential users of mediation.