The Economist of February 3, 2007 notes that JAMS, America’s main mediation and arbitration service, has more than 200 full-time “neutrals” on it books. It handles 10,000 cases a year worldwide. For what it is worth, I can vouchsafe for JAMS. For four years I provided specialist geotechnical services to one of their administrative law judges in a huge mediation settlement, It was fun; but more important it was impressive, and, I suspect, saved both parties millions. Nothing to do with mining though. In the rest of this article I describe a controversial mining arbitration case. Read on.

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Our previous piece on what the Bible says about mining brought this comment from Ian Hore-Lacy:

A fuller and more recent approach to this issue than the paper you link to is in my 2006 book Responsible Dominion. There has been a lot Christian writing on environmental care in the last fifteeen years, but there is almost nothing about a Christian approach to resources, including minerals and energy (also land use issues and more.) I have sought to rectify that on basis of 33 years experience in the minerals industry.

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