{"id":394799,"date":"2026-09-01T14:30:49","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T09:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/?p=394799"},"modified":"2026-09-01T14:20:56","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T08:50:56","slug":"mediation-call-for-papers-practitioners-mediators-adr-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/post\/2026\/09\/01\/mediation-call-for-papers-practitioners-mediators-adr-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Call for Chapters: The Mediation Act, 2023 — E-Book with ISBN; No Publication Fee"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The India Legal Research Foundation (ILRF) is making a call for chapters in the form of research papers and conceptual papers for an edited book titled “The Mediation Act, 2023<\/a>: Settlement, Structure and Access to Justice” — Volume I of the ILRF Chapter Series, to be published with its own ISBN.<\/p>\n

About the Book<\/p>\n

Dispute resolution in India has long been organised around the courtroom. The Mediation Act, 2023<\/a> attempts something different: it moves mediation from the margins of practice into the statutory mainstream, making it a first step rather than a last resort.<\/p>\n

The Act introduces pre-litigation mediation, gives the mediated settlement agreement the status and enforceability of a decree, and creates an institutional architecture of mediation service providers, mediation institutes and a Mediation Council of India.<\/p>\n

These are structural changes, not procedural tinkering. They alter where a dispute begins, who resolves it, what a settlement is worth, and how competence is certified in a profession that has until now grown largely without regulation.<\/p>\n

The harder questions are empirical and normative. Does a statutory obligation to attempt mediation produce genuine settlement, or a new queue before the old one? Can consent survive compulsion? Is an enforceable settlement agreement an access-to-justice gain for the litigant with the weaker bargaining position, or a risk? Who is accredited to mediate, and on what standard?<\/p>\n

Several years into the Act, we still lack a consolidated body of Indian scholarship that reads the statute closely, tests it against data, and places it alongside comparative frameworks such as the Singapore Convention on Mediation.<\/p>\n

This volume attempts to build that record. The purpose of the edited book is to examine the design of the Mediation Act, 2023<\/a>, document its working on the ground, and identify what reform the next amendment cycle should carry.<\/p>\n

Contributors are therefore requested to choose one of the sub-themes listed below and submit an abstract through the Google Form linked under How to Submit?<\/span>; full chapters are invited by e-mail only after the abstract is accepted.<\/p>\n

Eligibility<\/p>\n

The call is open to practitioners and mediators, ADR faculty and mediation centre coordinators, research scholars, LL.M. and final-year LL.B. students, and policy professionals.<\/p>\n

Single-authored or co-authored submissions are accepted, with a maximum of two authors per chapter. Academicians, research scholars, advocates and students are requested to circulate this call among their faculties, colleagues and research groups.<\/p>\n

About the Publisher<\/p>\n

The India Legal Research Foundation (ILRF)<\/span> is a legal research and policy think tank working across access to justice and legal research, capacity building, and legal awareness.<\/p>\n

This edited book is Volume I of the ILRF Chapter Series, published with its own ISBN.<\/p>\n

Theme<\/p>\n

ILRF invites chapters from interested contributors in areas broadly based on the following theme: “The Mediation Act, 2023<\/a>: Settlement, Structure and Access to Justice”<\/span><\/p>\n

Sub-themes<\/p>\n