Podcasts, powerpoints and/or papers from the presentations are available to LEADR members and
'kon gres 2011 participants via a password protected area. Click here >>

Learn techniques and tricks for dealing with complex mediations and heighten your awareness of the themes and issues involved.

Complex mediations heighten the demands on mediators. We need effective techniques to manage:

• multiple interconnecting issues
• high levels of uncertainty, confusion and anxiety
• many parties pursuing apparently irreconcilable interests.

The UN has been mediating complex global climate change negotiations involving almost 200 countries, with wildly different interests and circumstances. (Imagine getting almost 200 people to agree on anything!)

Each year, the talks are hosted by a different nation, which has some control over the design and implementation of the process. The 2009 conference in Copenhagen ended in frustration and vitriol, leading many to ask whether the multi-lateral UN approach was doomed. A year later at Cancún, the parties and observers rewarded the session President with long, standing ovations for restoring transparency and inclusiveness.

What made the difference?  What techniques proved flawed at Copenhagen; and what was effective at Cancún?

We will interrogate the different processes used at the two sessions, focussing on what techniques were effective, and why.  Through active, high-energy discussion, we will then explore how we might apply these insights in our own practice.

Podcast: Listen to Phillip talk about this session pre-kon gres (6 mins) >>

Phillip finds as much time as he can to be with his wife, Fiona, and their three grown-up children, of whom he is very proud.  He loves to bushwalk, read and bike-ride, and fails to make enough time for any of these