After a weekend of intense competition, the winners of the First ICC International Commercial Mediation Competition were announced here in Paris Monday evening. The winning trophy went to a team from the University of Houston Law Center (USA), comprising Jim Lawrence and Katharine Sands and their coach Jeff Abrams.

Announcing the winners, ICC Secretary General Guy Sebban said that they had been selected for the skills they had shown in problem-solving. He congratulated all participants and thanked the many mediation professionals who had contributed to the success of the event.

Organized by ICC with the cooperation of the American Bar Association, the competition took place at ICC’s Paris headquarters over three days and brought together thirteen teams representing law schools from universities in Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States. The competitors were required to act as counsel and parties before professional mediators and to use the ICC ADR Rules to solve problems devised by a special drafting committee of mediation experts. The ICC ADR Rules were introduced in 2001 and offer a structured way of seeking a mutually agreed solution to a dispute.

Like the Vienna Arbitration Moot, the ICC International Commercial Mediation Competition will be held annually and promises to make a key contribution to the education of law students in the area of dispute resolution. Speaking at Monday’s closing ceremony, Anne Marie Whitesell, Secretary General of the ICC International Court of Arbitration and head of ICC’s Dispute Resolution Services, said: ‘An important part of our mission here at ICC is to educate the law professionals of tomorrow about the full range of dispute resolution mechanisms designed for resolving international business disputes.’

The competition was organized by the ADR division of ICC’s Dispute Resolution Services with the participation of professional mediators from 12 different countries. The winning law school was offered an internship in ICC’s Dispute Resolution Secretariat and each member of the winning team received a one-year subscription to the ICC International Court of Arbitration Bulletin. The runners-up received a copy of ADR Principles and Practice by Brown and Marriott, offered by the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, and those who came third were awarded a one-year subscription to the World Arbitration and Mediation Report, published by Jurist Publishing and Penn’s State Institute for Arbitration Law & Practice.