Sino-us Mediation System Is A Comparative Study

The theme of this paper is to summarize the respective features, contents and evolutional process of mediation in China and America by introducing their histories and present situations; and to conclude the value of these two different institutes through comparative study in respect of legal structure, culture basis and developing trend of mediation; and relevant advice on restructuring the institute of mediation is also given in this paper.China is recognized as the"No.1 Mediation Country of the World"due to its long-lasting history of mediation, high rate of mediation settlements and big amount of mediation constitutions and professionals. Mediation in China is distinguished from that of other countries, which is particularly typical in the Court-performed mediation and arbitration-mediation systems. The flexibility of the mediation procedure and the combination of the roles of mediator and judge/arbitrator are the typical features of China's mediation system, which however are being criticized the most by foreign scholars and law practitioners. This paper will mainly focus on analyzing the court-performed mediation system and explore the values and advantages of such system. The arbitration-mediation system will also be discussed. In the end of this paper, some legislative suggestions will be made to the reform of Chinese mediation and development of ADR in America.