These developments have taken place extremely rapidly. They represent significant changes to the legal environment within which the international construction industry conducts its business but, to date, there has been little research on their impact. All these initiatives have inevitably led to a developing legal jurisprudence concerned with the validity of contract clauses or with providing statutory interpretation of the rules requiring or governing practice. This has important consequences for the construction industry because legal uncertainty increases the likelihood of dispute, which is not only costly for the disputants but can be damaging to national and global economies.
This book identifies the emerging international practices within construction mediation, and seeks solutions to the many legal and commercial challenges which they pose. It presents an international collection of reviews by experts, and allows a comparative commentary on the practice of construction mediation and the legal challenges facing its development.
Penny Brooker is a Reader in Alternative Dispute Resolution and mediation at the University of Wolverhampton, UK. Suzanne Wilkinson is Associate Professor at The University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Jointly, they are coordinators of TG 68, the international task group for construction mediation of the International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction (CIB), part of CIB’s Working Commission W113 on Law and Dispute Resolution.