Competition Rules

Every effort will be made to ensure that the rules and case scenarios are clear. Those who intend to participate are encouraged to raise any questions they may have with the competition host at the earliest opportunity. If any such question concerns the application, or intended application, of the Rules and Guidance Notes, or any omission thereto, the competition host, shall contact one or more of the members of the competition organising committee for guidance on the appropriate response to be given to that question. The common facts relating to each mediation scenario will be released a week before the commencement of the competition. From the date of release until the date of the commencement of the competition, the host institution shall attempt to answer any such questions by email and will circulate all questions so raised and the answers given to such questions to all other teams by email contemporaneously with the submission of the answer to the team who raised the question. The confidential information required by each competitor who role-play a party to the mediation will only be released on the relevant day of the competition.

The Competition Structure Overview

Each team is made up of three students. These students must either be enrolled as students at the institution which they represent or have graduated from that institution in the six months immediately preceding the date of the competition. If a student has competed in this competition in a previous year, he or she shall not be permitted to compete in this year’s competition. In each mediation round, each competitor institution has two of its members assigned to perform as co-mediators working together as a team. Each team member will perform two mediations (of 75 minutes each) during the competition. The competition will consist of three separate rounds. In the same mediation round the other team member, not co-mediating, will perform the role of one of the parties coming to mediation without the services of an advocate. This role will be performed on one occasion. This third team member (in each round) will not perform this role before his/her team colleagues but before a team of two co-mediators provided by another competitor institution. In the same mediation round, the role of the other party coming to mediation (without the services of an advocate) will be played either by a student from the host institution or from other competing institutions who have been able to bring a non-competing student with them to the competition. In accordance with the above, each team member will role-play a mediator twice and a party to a mediation once during the competition and each performance will take place against the background of a different mediation scenario.

Competencies

Student mediators will be required to display the following areas of mediation competence upon which they will be judged:

• Active listening and empathy
• Facilitative questioning
• Management of the process
• Reflection on the process
• Maintaining trust & rapport
• Mediation strategy
• Identifying common interests
• Moving the process forward

Details of the mediator competencies the judges will be looking for are contained in the more detailed version of the rules and guidance document.

Here you can download a pdf of the latest and more detailed version of the Competition Rules and Guidance Notes document, explaining team composition and team orientation, competition format/schedule, judges’ role, and scoring etc.