Teaching Negotiation and Mediation to Law Students in Mongolia
I am just back from a two-week post as a Visiting Professor of Mediation and Negotiation at the National University of Mongolia School of Law. I taught mediation skills and negotiation tips and strategies. I found Mongolian law students to be both engaged and engaging. They were thoughtful, they asked good questions and they seemed interested in the subject matter. I encourage them to practice negotiation.
Mediation has a very small toehold in Mongolia at the moment, but a bill has been introduced in the Parliament to include mediation as a dispute resolution alternative in Mongolian civil courts. I therefore congratulated my students for being on the cutting edge of ADR in their country!
Mongolia, which lies between China and Russia (Siberia), is a beautiful country with a sub-arctic climate. (It snowed while I was there in September.) It turns out, sitting under its permafrost are vast natural resources. For instance, the world’s larger copper and gold mine is being built in the Gobi desert. It also has large deposits of molybdenum, coal, uranium and other minerals and natural resources.
You are sure to be hearing more about Mongolia in the next several years. Its economic growth rate through the first eight months of this year was 17%. Outstanding, compared to the rest of the world. I can attest that its next generation of leaders will be up to the task of bringing Mongolia into the 21st Century.
Some of my students are in the picture above, as well as my host, the Chair of the International Law Department, Professor Tumenjargal Mendsaikhan.