The ICC Paris Experience - Harsh Joshi, Student - V.M.Salgaocar College of Law

Mediation and Negotiation as forms of Alternate Dispute Resolution are indeed the best alternatives to Litigations in Court. It not only gives you the space, comfort and control to resolve the disputes but also allows you to learn the best lessons from the conflicts before you.

My experience at ICC International Commercial Mediation Competition 2018, Paris, has been one of the most wonderful learning experiences. I learnt from my teammates, I learnt from the mediators, I learnt from the other teams and of course the judge’s feedbacks.

I Thank the Principal Dr. M.R.K Prasad Sir, Prof. Patil Sir, Prof. Sandhya Ma’am and the ADR Board for giving me this opportunity.  It was amazing to be a part of the team with Elton, Adrian and Shannon. I did not know them before we started preparing for the competition and I’m glad that it took no time to be comfortable and make friends with them.

Each stage of this competition has been very memorable to me. Having just started with studying law and understanding, learning the skills of negotiation and mediation, it was really interesting when I first read the ICC problems. These problems were long and needed to be read carefully over and over again.

Discussing the issues and coming up with options and strategies kept getting better each time we read the problem. 

Something that I learnt from this reading of the problems is that it is possible to discover something mentioned within the problem that puts you in a good advantage and in one particular experience we had was that the other team had probably missed out on this one missing information and had not even asked for a clarification regarding the same. Hence when our team asked the question on the missing information, the other team wasn’t really prepared for it.

Another of my observations through out the competition rounds was that the opening statement made a huge impact on the impressions with the judges. Strong, well drafted and well delivered opening statements is very essential and has a lasting impression with the judges. I felt even where the teams somewhere went down in the course of the mediation session, if they started off well, score wise they kind of made up for it.

What I also understood was that sometimes it is important to not be very stubborn about the options that you have generated or come to the table thinking about. Accepting an offer generated by the other party can be a wonderful thing to do. If it appears to be a good option keeping in mind the facts of the problem then maybe it is a good idea to consider it or show your interest in considering it.

In the end I would like to say that every round, every judge is different and in all possibilities what they expect can be different too. To be dynamic, engaging, pleasant and confident can be a good way to be prepared for any situation.

Talking about Paris, it is indeed a beautiful city. We were lucky to enjoy the cold and witness some heavy snowfall. Though I guess my teammates weren’t as excited about the cold as I was. Since we focused a lot on the competition we did not go sight seeing in the competition days. Towards the end we did enjoy a bit of shopping and going around Paris.

Sharing a few pictures from this beautiful trip!