Multilateral Negotiation:
Tools for Conflict Resolution and Prevention

Tuesday, March 13th, 2 PM – 3:30 PM

iLab/Building 37

Description: Multilateralism is a process of international negotiation involving primarily, although not exclusively, state actors and at least three parties. In the international context, effective multilateral negotiations help resolve and prevent conflicts. This session explores the characteristics and processes of multilateral negotiations, and considers how the model could be applied to address social, political and economic issues in the Hawaii community.

Speakers:

Professor Alex Carter is the director of the Columbia Law School Mediation Program, director of Clinical Programs, and a Clinical Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. Carter won the Jane Marks Murphy Prize for clinical advocacy while a student at Columbia Law School and has become a strong advocate of mediation as a valuable tool for many kinds of legal challenges. Through the New York Peace Institute, a nonprofit that specializes in mediation, Carter has served as a mediator. She has also supervised student mediations in court-related programs at New York City Civil Court and Harlem Small Claims Court.

Carter received her J.D. from the Law School in 2003, where she was articles editor for the Journal of Transnational Law and won the Lawrence S. Greenbaum Prize for best oral argument in the 2002 Harlan Fiske Stone Moot Court Competition. She earned her B.A. at Georgetown University in 1997.

Professor Shawn Watts is the associate director of Columbia Law School Mediation Program. A Citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, Watts won the Jane Marks Murphy Prize for clinical advocacy and was a Strine Fellow while he was a student at Columbia Law School. He developed and teaches a course in Native American Peacemaking, which is a traditional indigenous form of dispute resolution. He has mediated in the New York City Civil Court, Harlem Small Claims Court, and the Institute for Mediation and Conflict Resolution, and supervised student mediations in court- related programs in New York City.

Prior to receiving his J.D. degree at the Law School, Watts served as the president of the National Native American Law Students Association and was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar as a student. During that time, he was also managing editor of Law School’s Journal of Law and Social Problems. Watts earned a B.A. from St. John’s College in Santa Fe, N.M. in 2000.

Co-Sponsors: Association for Conflict Resolution, Hawai‘i Chapter;
Spark M. Matsunaga Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution; The Hawai‘i State Bar Association, ADR Section; The Center for Alternative Dispute Resolution-Hawai‘i State Judiciary; The Mediation Center of the Pacific