October 11, 2012
This August, faculty, alumni and students from St. John’s School
of Law and Fordham Law joined together for the second year in a row
to offer mediation training in Sunyani, Ghana. Hosted by the
Catholic University College of Ghana and supported
by the Giving to Ghana Foundation, the 40-hour training
provided a rich and contextualized immersion in mediation for 55
trainees from around Ghana, including chiefs, lawyers, clergy,
educators, administrators, and professional mediators. The training
was led by Professors
Elayne E. Greenberg,
Paul F. Kirgis, and
Janai S. Nelson from St. John’s and Jackie Nolan-Haley from
Fordham, working with Ghanaian Professors Nene Amegatcher and
Michael Owusu. The training qualifies the participants to serve as
court-connected mediators under Ghana’s new ADR Act.
Professors Nolan-Haley and Greenberg co-developed the training
based on Ghanaian dispute resolution values and authentic Ghanaian
conflict simulations. St. John’s law alumni Samantha Horn ‘11, NK
Udogwu ’12 and Ravin Shah ’12, all of whom received mediation
training at St. John’s, served as coaches for the
simulations.
“Ghana is an ideal country for a conflict resolution initiative
like this,” said Professor Paul Kirgis, noting that Ghana was the
first sub-Saharan African country to gain independence and has
perhaps Africa’s best record of peaceful democratic government.
“Ghanaians are justifiably proud of their history of peaceful
conflict resolution. They can teach us at least as much as we can
teach them.”
Echoing those thoughts, Professor Greenberg said: “Ghana has a long
standing history of using customary dispute resolution that
continues to be administered by the different tribal chiefs,” she
said. “Now Ghana’s customary dispute resolution system is evolving
and becoming a more formal part of the legal system. How humbling
to have the opportunity to work with people who embrace dispute
resolution as an essential cultural value.”
This year, the partners undertook two new projects to supplement
the mediation training. First, two justices from the New York
Supreme Court’s Appellate Division led workshops on judicial
opinion writing for Ghanaian judges. Hon. Daniel D. Angiolillo ‘77,
a St. John’s School of Law alumnus, and Hon. Mark C. Dillon, a
Fordham Law alumnus, conducted seminars for judges in Sunyani and
in Kumasi
Moving beyond formal dispute resolution, this year’s program also
featured a new initiative to promote economic development
throughout the region. St. John’s Law alumnus David Grossman ’11
met with officials of the Brong Ahafo Catholic Cooperative for
Social Development to find ways to offer expanded micro-lending in
the Brong Ahafo region of Ghana and beyond. An initial $10,000
commitment from the Giving to Ghana Foundation will seed the
program. Plans are in place to send St. John’s law students to
Ghana in coming years to work with business owners, entrepreneurs,
and farmers to enhance their negotiation and business planning
skills.