Other legal matters in brief
Alternative dispute resolution
Over 100 lawyers, mediators, civil servants and others attended a seminar hosted by the Law Reform Commission last week to discuss its consultation paper on alternative dispute resolution.
Ray Byrne, head of research at the commission, told Law Matters that submissions on this paper will still be accepted up to the end of March, and the commission intends to publish its final report later this year.
Already the submissions received so far and the seminar have isolated and helped clarify some issues, he said.
Among them is the need to focus specifically on conciliation and mediation as specific forms of alternative dispute resolution, while recognising there was some overlap between them.
The commission was also aware of the need to set out general principles in this area, while identifying discrete areas where some specialisation would be necessary, he said.
The issue of costs, and whether costs could be ordered against a party who refused to engage in mediation, had also arisen.
However, Mr Byrne pointed out that it would be a challenge for the commission to reconcile the awarding of costs with the need for absolute respect for both the voluntary and the confidential aspects of mediation.
UCD opens up criminology
The UCD School of Law is opening access to its postgraduate programme in criminology and criminal justice to graduates from disciplines other than law.
Enquiries should be addressed to lawpostgraduate@ucd.ie
Report on anti-terror laws
An independent panel of eminent judges and lawyers last week presented their findings on the impact of counter-terrorism measures and called for remedial action to restore human rights norms.
The Eminent Jurists’ Panel on Terrorism, Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights, established by the International Commission of Jurists, based its report Assessing Damage, Urging Action on 16 hearings covering more than 40 countries.
The chairman of the panel, Justice Arthur Chaskalson, first president of the South African constitutional court, said they were shocked by the extent of damage done over the past seven years by excessive or abusive counter-terrorism measures in a wide range of countries around the world.
The full report is available from the ICJ at www.icj.org
Conference papers
The UCD Institute of Criminology will host the fifth Irish Criminology Conference on June 15th and 16th next, and has issued a call for papers.
The final selection of papers, based on the submission of abstracts of not more than 200 words, will be made by May 11th.