Workshop on Negotiation and Mediation Skills 2 credits / 6 weeks weeks Professor Amr Abdalla All social interactions, from personal relationships to international arena, experience opposing preferences. Hence an introductory course on the theory and practice of negotiation and mediation is essential for understanding topics as diverse as marital disputes, organizational relations, community conflicts, group decision-making and international relations. It will enhance one's ability to critically review situations in order to find and adopt a mutually accepted solution to a given situation. This course is therefore designed to serve as a broad introduction to the nature, scope, theories and practices of negotiation and mediation. The course will examine the complex and yet essential roles of negotiation and mediation as part of the main procedures of dealing with opposing preferences and as models of constructive conflict transformation. The course will set the context with a discussion on the nature, assumptions, emotions and decision-making approaches involved in negotiations, the dynamics revolving around it and the gender perspective to it. It will also examine the various objectives, considerations, essences and processes of mediation. The course utilizes participatory and interactive pedagogies.
Amr Abdalla
Professor Emeritus, University for Peace Dr. Abdalla is a Professor Emeritus at the University for Peace (UPEACE), and the Scholar in Residence at the Baker Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies at Juniata College, Pennsylvania. He is also the Senior Advisor on Conflict Resolution at the Washington-based organization KARAMAH (Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights). From 2014 to 2017, he was the Senior Advisor on Policy Analysis and Research at the Institute for Peace and Security Studies (IPSS) of Addis Ababa University. In 2013-2014, he was Vice President of SALAM Institute for Peace and Justice in Washington, DC. From 2004-2013 he was Professor, Dean and Vice Rector at UPEACE. Prior to that, he was a Senior Fellow with the Peace Operations Policy Program, School of Public Policy, at George Mason University, Virginia. He was also a Professor of Conflict Analysis and Resolution at the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences in Leesburg, Virginia. Both his academic and professional careers are multi-disciplinary. He obtained a law degree in Egypt in 1977, where he practiced law as a prosecuting attorney from 1978 to 1986. From 1981-1986, he was a member of the public prosecutor team investigating the case of the assassination of President Sadat and numerous other terrorism cases. He then emigrated to the US, where he obtained a Master’s degree in Sociology and a Ph.D. in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason University. He has been teaching graduate classes in conflict analysis and resolution and has conducted training, research, and evaluation of conflict resolution and peacebuilding programs in numerous countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas. He has been an active figure in promoting inter-faith dialogue and effective cross-cultural messages through workshops and community presentations in the United States and beyond. He pioneered the development of the first conflict resolution teaching and training manual for Muslim communities titled (“…Say Peace”). He also founded Project LIGHT (Learning Islamic Guidance for Human Tolerance), a community peer-based anti-discrimination project funded by the National Conference for Community and Justice (NCCJ). In 2011, he established with Egyptian UPEACE graduates a program for community prevention of sectarian violence in Egypt (Ahl el Hetta). In 2018 he led the publication of the first Arabic Glossary of Terms in Peace and Conflict Studies in cooperation with UNDP-Iraq and the Iraqi Amal Association.
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