3 Mediation and Its Procedures

1. The concept: the neutral's facilitation — the mediator assisting the parties to their own settlement (no decision imposed: the mediator's art = the interests' architecture, not the rights' adjudication); the settlement = the parties' contract (the mediation-settlement's decree- effect where the statute provides); 2. The Nepali frame: the Mediation Act 2068 (2011) — the mediation's statutory institutionalization: the mediators' training-and-licensing; the settlement's registration-and- enforceability; the court-annexed mediation (the Civil Procedure Code's mediation-first stage — Unit 3's milaap mandate); the community-and-local mediation centres (the ward-level practice; the NGO-era mediation movements — the peace-building lineage); 3. The procedure (the Act's-and-practice's map): (i) the reference (the parties' agreement or the court's referral); (ii) the mediator's appointment (the roster; the impartiality); (iii) the sessions (the joint-and-caucus technique; the confidentiality's rule — the without-prejudice discipline); (iv) the settlement's writing-and-signing; (v) the registration (the court's-or-centre's registration = the enforceable settlement); 4. The mediation's principles: the voluntariness (no imposed settlement); the confidentiality; the neutrality; the party-control; the best-interests' sensitivity (the family-and-child disputes' special care — Family Law's Unit 7, this semester); 5. The mediation-vs-arbitration table: the third party's role (facilitator vs. adjudicator); the outcome (the parties' agreement vs. the binding award); the finality (the settlement's renegotiability-none vs. the award's challenge-narrowness); the formality's degree — the exam's classic comparison.