Jan. 29th-30th, teams from 14 universities in 10 different countries have descended on Vilnius to participate in the European Mediation Tournament Mediate’16 held at Mykolas Romeris University‘s MRU LAB.

At the event there are teams from Lithuania‘s Vilnius University (VU), Kaunas-based Vytautas Magnus University, and MRU.

Other universities represented include the Czech Republic‘s Charles University, the Belarus European Humanities University, Estonia‘s University of Tartu, France‘s Universite Paris 1-Pantheon-Sorbonne, Georgia‘s Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, Latvia‘s Turiba University, Poland‘s Jagiellonian University, Poland‘s University of Warsaw and India‘s National Law Institute University in Bhopal.

Students attended a 2-day workshop Jan. 27-28th and then prepared for the Mediation Tournament.

More than a dozen judges will be present to judge at the tournament.

The best team will win a trip to Chicago in March to participate in the 2016 International Law School Mediation Tournament held at Loyola University.

On Jan. 27th, U.S. lawyer and full-time mediator Richard M. Calkins, President of the International Academy of Dispute Resolution, was the keynote speaker on opening day of a mediation workshop.

“Being a mediator is one of the highest callings in the legal profession,“ he said.

Calkins, is a founding partner of the Chicago law firm of Burditt and Calkins and is the former dean of Iowa's Drake University Law School. He has taken part in 2000 mediation and arbitration sessions.

On Jan. 27th he briefed students on mediation techniques and styles.

“Mediation is a very creative process,“ Calkins told law students gathered at the training session from countries as varied as France, India and Ukraine.

“The ultimate is to be a peacemaker,“ he added. A change in thinking is necessary in order to mediate. One must think like a peacemaker, he explained.

It is the first time that the Mediate event is held in Lithuania. Such mediation tournaments have been held in Australia, Brazil, Singapore.

MRU Law Faculty Public Law Institute Head Assoc. Prof. Dr. Agnė Tvaronavičienė, Chairman of Lithuania's Arbitration Court, said interest in the event was such that applicants had to be turned away.

MRU Vice-Rector for Research and International Relations Dr. Inga Žalėnienė said in her welcome address that mediation will no doubt “become one of the primary tools to resolve disputes in a large number of develped and developing countries.“

“Mediation has established itself as a valued approach to dispute resolution in more and more countries worldwide,“ she added.

The European Mediation Tournament is organized in part by MRU‘s Mediation and Sustainable Conflict Resolution Laboratory