Our issue-by-issue tour of CIArb Branches brings us now to Australia.

The Australian Branch was formed in 1995. It now has well over a hundred members located across mainland Australia. The headquarters is in Sydney, staffed by a part-time Executive Officer, who works under the policy direction and management of the Branch office-bearers and committee.

The Branch issues a trim and attractive newsletter, the issue for October 2003 running to four A4-sized pages. From this we learn that in 2003 the Branch launched an innovative dispute resolution scheme. This provides for the resolution of disputes by a combination of facilitated negotiation and arbitration, in which the negotiation stage and the arbitration stage are controlled by the same Chartered Arbitrator. Thus any matter not resolved by negotiation is determined by the Chartered Arbitrator, who is already familiar with the issue – a process that they commend as both continuous and efficient.

The Branch takes its educational responsibilities seriously too. For example, its Educational Subcommittee organised a weekend entry course in Sydney in early December. Also during the second half of 2003 the Branch arranged (with other disputes resolution bodies) a breakfast address by the eminent Indian international lawyer and arbitrator Mr Fali S Nariman. They also held a combined dinner and ‘Great ADR Balloon Debate’, in which four distinguished protagonists of different ADR procedures argued from the imaginary basket of a fast-descending balloon which of them deserved to be the sole survivor of the crash-landing. (Apparently the mediator won – though it is not recorded whether he found a way of resolving the dispute that met the interests and approval of all the parties.)

We offer the Australian Branch our good wishes for the future – and our hope that their entry course will have resulted in the recruitment of enough mediators to make up for the unhappy loss of the other three balloonists.