Mediators Without Borders is an international organization established in 1994, modeled to serve as an educational “Institute within Universities” and currently listed in over 900 college catalogues. Our mission for Sustainable Peace expanded in 2013 as MWB opens “Empirically Based Social Action Research” Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Centers both Nationally & Internationally. This is a part of our “Classroom to Career” initiative. MWB has a “fair profit” organizational model designing the ADR Centers to directly educate and serve the public in Facilitation, Mediation, Arbitration and Restorative Justice. The ADR Centers are implementing the research based inAccord model for justice with a goal to gather and report empirical data, provide internships abroad, and create economically sustainable endowments for the ADR Centers within the regions they operate.
Mediators without Borders (MwB) is a developing network of ADR Centers around the world that foster sustainable peace through best-in-practice alternative dispute resolution techniques. Our approach to ‘sustainable peace’ includes methodology in conflict resolution and use of sustainable building strategies in the design and operation of the Centers in each country. Each Center serves as a local center of excellence, helping to identify culturally competent and local/global solutions to conflict. The Center experiences contribute to a global body of alternative conflict resolution research accessible to clients around the world.
For example, a Center in the Niger Delta that is successfully dealing with tensions caused by an inequitable distribution of wealth and resources, will offer assistance to another Center facing similar issues half way around the world in a Peruvian village. The assistance provided will vary according to need, and could range from the simple (letter, email, and phone call) to the sophisticated (Skype video call, WebEx, and website You-Tube type library). The Centers would be linked both physically and virtually through a flagship research institute in Boulder, Colorado. Mediators without Borders will strive to deliver technology that is accessible to the broadest populations possible, regardless of location, socio-economic status, or form of government.
Dr. Michael Beckwith
Pillars for Sustainable Peace
Mediators without Borders has identified four pillars to achieving “sustainable peace” through our model of globally networked ADR Centers.
- Pillar One: Build a global network of research based physical and virtual clinics located closest to dispute sources, utilizing the inAccord Conflict Analysis model
- Pillar Two: Local ownership of global solutions
- Pillar Three: Equality of access to technology and research findings
- Pillar Four: Economic sustainability, the fair profit model