During our ACR Hawaii pilot project Virtual Mediation Lab - http://goo.gl/dnc0Y - it has happened a couple of times that English was not the mediator's (or one of the parties') first language. It did not work well. The combined effort of having to mediate online and communicate with someone who is not fluent in English can be too overwhelming.

On the other hand, it is also true that:

>> A mediator's command of the English language has nothing whatsoever to do with his or her ability, skills, experience, and motivation to learn from other mediators
>> Nowadays, many mediators around the world can read a mediation script in English without difficulty

For this reason, we would like to invite to participate in our Virtual Mediation Lab also:

>> Mediators who are bilingual: i.e. they are fluent in English and another language
>> Mediators who don't speak but can read English

During our online mediation simulations via Skype, we could therefore have these groups of mediators:

>> Mediator 1 (to play the mediator's role) - fluent in English and language X
>> Mediator 2 (to play Party 1's role) - fluent in English
>> Mediator 3 (to play Party 2's role) - fluent in language X

or

Mediators 1, 2, and 3, who speak language Y and can read their mediation script in English. Needless to say that, after all 3 mediators see how our simulations work, they are welcome to start setting up and running their own simulations, hopefully with more mediators who speak their language.

If you know mediators who might be interested to participate in this new VML experiment, they can sign up for our project (their first online mediation simulation is Free) - http://goo.gl/dnc0Y

A SMALL FIRST STEP
We are fully aware of the limits of our experiment. Obviously, mediating in different languages requires much more than translating a string of sentences. It requires mediators to have a good grasp of different cultures and sets of social values.

Nonetheless, we believe that our small experiment can be a useful first step for bringing mediators around the world together, so they can practice and improve their mediation skills, and to learn from one another. Such experience can be particularly valuable if they intend to add ODR (Online Dispute Resolution) to their practice or start mediating International disputes online.

Giuseppe Leone