Amanda Bucklow

I came to mediation after 14 years in international business, working in environments where negotiation was part of everyday commercial life.

My career included physical metals trading and the London Metal Exchange, international contracts and shipping, currency hedging, international sales and marketing, and responsibility for turning around an underperforming business division.

I negotiated as both buyer and seller. I dealt with suppliers, customers and colleagues across international markets, and with the practical consequences of decisions about price, performance, risk, cash flow and relationships.

One lesson has remained with me throughout: commercial decisions are rarely made in isolation.

A legal position may define what is possible. It does not, by itself, determine what makes commercial sense.

I began working full-time in negotiation and dispute resolution in 1991 and became an accredited commercial mediator in 1996.

My work has involved disputes between businesses, individuals, public bodies and professional advisers across a wide range of sectors, values and jurisdictions.

FAMILY BUSINESS

Horticulture · East Africa
Inheritance and ownership issues
Complex commercial and family dynamics

Developing the practice of mediation

My interest in mediation has always extended beyond the cases themselves. I have spent much of my career exploring what makes the process — and the mediator — effective.

That has included researching mediator effectiveness, designing and delivering professional training, accrediting mediators and contributing to the development of professional practice and standards.

2,000+

people trained in dispute resolution

1,000+ 

accredited mediators

'Friendly, flexible, clearly very experienced, with a wealth of knowledge. Very passionate about mediation without being overly reverential. A great double act with great wit and charm!

Participant Feedback - CIArb Foundation Mediation Training Programme

Some of the most interesting lessons about conflict come from looking beyond the individual dispute.

That wider perspective has taken me into professional standards and practice, communication and conflict within organisations, and discussions about the role of dispute resolution in commercial and public life.

For twelve years, I contributed to the development of the mediation profession as a Director and Trustee of the Civil Mediation Council, including as Chair of its Communications Committee. I have also served as a Distinguished Fellow and Governor of the International Academy of Mediators.

My work with Railtrack, and subsequently Network Rail, addressed serious challenges in railway safety, including the tension between contractors’ commercial interests and safe working practices. The problems had been identified. The challenge was finding ways to resolve them.

Working with frontline railway staff, contractors and technical specialists, I designed and led initiatives within two closely related projects: a new approach to planning and risk assessment, and a fundamental redesign of the railway Rule Book.

Both depended on bringing together people with different interests and perspectives, including some of the most vocal critics of existing arrangements, and giving them meaningful responsibility for developing solutions.

The resulting online contractor booking system was designed and implemented in just 12 weeks, at a cost of £100,000 against an initial estimate exceeding £1 million. I also designed and delivered an HSE-approved risk assessment training programme incorporating mediation skills for more than 1,500 contractors.

The Rule Book project transformed complex technical instructions into accessible, activity-specific guidance, developed collaboratively with frontline workers.

The underlying principle was simple: people are more likely to take responsibility for changes they have helped to create.

My contribution to professional and public discussions about dispute resolution has included examining how conflict is managed in major infrastructure projects.

In March 2018, I addressed the All-Party Parliamentary Group on ADR at the House of Lords, challenging the emphasis on contractual mechanisms for allocating liability and resolving disputes. I argued for greater attention to the behaviours, incentives and relationships that determine whether collaboration works in practice.

My argument was that the value of effective conflict management lies not simply in reducing the cost of disputes, but in recognising problems early, encouraging people to raise concerns and creating shared responsibility for addressing them.

In May 2011, I was responsible for managing and facilitating a dialogue between young Israelis and young Palestinians at the House of Commons, under the auspices of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Conflict Issues. My work began well before the meeting, through direct engagement with participants who faced considerable personal and community pressures over their decision to take part. Despite those difficulties, all but one chose to participate.

Experience matters because it informs judgement: knowing when to challenge an assumption, when to ask another question, when to intervene and when to allow people the space to find their own way forward.

No two disputes are the same. Each brings its own complexities, contradictions and competing interests. What matters is understanding how those elements interact, recognising what the situation requires and guiding those involved towards making decisions they can understand, own and act upon.