🪧 The MFSD 2026 Not-a-Manifesto for European Civil Justice

by MFSD

Conflict is a natural and inevitable component of civil and commercial relationships.

It becomes a systemic problem only when it is not anticipated, governed, or managed through appropriate, proportionate, and sustainable mechanisms.

This document is not a manifesto in the traditional sense.

It does not prescribe a rigid model, nor does it promote an ideological vision. Rather, it seeks to set out a pragmatic, experience-based framework for rethinking European civil justice, grounded in institutional responsibility, party autonomy, and measurable outcomes.

Drawing on more than twenty-five years of practice in alternative dispute resolution (ADR), MFSD promotes a vision of civil justice in which mediation and ADR mechanisms are not ancillary options, but structural components of a modern justice system, essential to efficiency, accessibility, legal certainty, and long-term sustainability.

Ten Founding Principles

1. Prevent

Conflict should be anticipated from the outset of human relationships and legal, organisational, and institutional arrangements, as an integral part of good governance and responsible decision-making. Prevention does not mean avoidance; it means preparedness.

The establishment of free information and guidance points within public administrations, supported by ADR professionals or ADR centres, to provide citizens and businesses with initial advice and orientation on dispute prevention and management, represents a cost-neutral measure capable of producing significant benefits.

Comparable listening and information services already exist in several European and non-European justice systems, as well as within international institutional ADR centres.

2. Design

Extrajudicial dispute resolution mechanisms must be consciously designed to be flexible, progressive, and proportionate to the interests at stake.

Procedural models as currently codified by legislators—rigid, automatic, and uniform—no longer reflect the growing complexity of contemporary disputes.

3. Agree

Mediation and other voluntary extrajudicial decision-making mechanisms for the resolution of civil and commercial disputes, such as arbitration and expert determination, should represent the natural forum and preferred means for conflict management.

MFSD supports a model of voluntary but strongly incentivised mediation, as an alternative to formal mandatory schemes, through a coherent system combining:

• significant tax deductions or credits, calibrated proportionately to the court fee that would otherwise be payable in judicial proceedings;

• non-monetary procedural incentives, including favourable cost allocation and procedural consequences in subsequent litigation;

• automatic, predictable, and effective sanctions for parties who unjustifiably refuse to participate in mediation, or who participate only formally without engaging effectively and in good faith;

• disciplinary consequences for professionals who fail to inform clients about the possibility of preventing or resolving disputes out of court, or who fail to provide a comparative cost estimate between litigation and ADR procedures.

This model preserves party autonomy while ensuring that mediation operates as a credible, effective, and rational first step, capable of structurally reducing litigation, improving the duration of proceedings, strengthening trust in the justice system, and supporting compliance with European reform objectives, including those linked to the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR).

Fiscal and non-monetary incentives may also be extended to adjudicative ADR mechanisms.

4. Choose

ADR clauses are not mere formalities. They are instruments for governing conflict and must be drafted consciously, clearly, and coherently with the actual relationship between the parties, the relevant sector, and the risk profile.

They should be structured in a proportionate, gradual, and escalating framework, combining the mechanisms most appropriate to the underlying economic relationship.

5. Care

Structured and ongoing dialogue, established before disputes arise, represents the most effective safeguard against escalation and promotes solutions that are sustainable over time.

The incentivisation—also through fiscal measures—of introducing figures such as the Ombud within organisations, including through agreements with employers’ associations or trade unions, should be encouraged.

An Ombud, acting as an impartial and independent mediator with expertise in workplace conflict, can manage internal relationships (among employees and between employees and employers), preventing or reducing conflict levels and improving workplace well-being.

Addressing conflict at its earliest stages allows for faster, less costly, and less relationship-damaging solutions, preserving both economic value and relational capital.

6. Educate

Conflict prevention and management should be regarded as fundamental civic skills.

MFSD supports the progressive introduction of conflict education from the earliest years of schooling, through:

• educational models based on gamification, now increasingly widespread and effective;

• experiential learning tools focused on cooperation, listening, and problem-solving.

This educational pathway should continue through higher education and culminate in the stable inclusion of dispute prevention, management, and extrajudicial resolution of civil and commercial disputes as either:

• an autonomous subject, or

• an integral part of the teaching of civil procedure.

The construction of a sustainable justice system necessarily depends on the education of future generations.

7. Understand

Emotions, perceptions, and communication dynamics are integral elements of any dispute. Effective resolution requires that these aspects be recognised and managed with professionalism, rather than disregarded as irrelevant.

The well-established and successful international practice of the Ombud and, more generally, workplace mediation, can contribute to monitoring the relational dimension of conflict and containing its litigious escalation, with significant savings in time, cost, and internal resources.

8. Adapt

Adjudicative mechanisms should represent the final outcome of a structured escalation process, not the automatic response to every disagreement.

Proportionality is a core principle of consensual justice.

The incentivisation and dissemination of modern conflict prevention and management mechanisms—already present within institutions and widely adopted in overseas systems—such as internal Ombud schemes within companies, communities, or interpersonal relationships, should become a consolidated best practice, to be adopted as a matter of course, for example, in national, company, or individual employment contracts, in public employment, and in the statutes of associative bodies.

9. Digitalise

Online dispute prevention and resolution tools, including Artificial Intelligence, enhance accessibility and efficiency, but remain support tools.

They cannot replace human judgement, ethical standards, or professional responsibility.

Corporate and public-sector policies should expressly exclude the use of Artificial Intelligence—of any kind—as an autonomous mechanism for extrajudicial dispute resolution, and such exclusions should be implemented at all legislative levels.

10. Measure

The effectiveness of dispute resolution should not be measured by the number of mediations conducted or decisions issued, but by the value preserved: relationships, time, economic resources, reputation, and systemic trust.

Impact-measurement tools for ADR—beyond purely quantitative indicators—should be adopted for businesses, citizens, and public administrations, ensuring transparency, completeness, and timeliness of information, and enabling evidence-based analysis and continuous improvement of the mechanisms.

The Invitation

A modern civil justice system is not one that decides more cases, mediates more disputes, or prevents more conflicts, but one that resolves disputes better, in qualitative terms, understood as the preservation of business, professional, and human relationships.

Mediation, like all forms of consensual justice (ADR), should not be perceived or experienced as a procedural formality or as an obstacle to access to justice. It is a systemic infrastructure that enables courts to operate more efficiently and sustainably, and allows parties to manage conflicts responsibly and autonomously.

This is not a manifesto.

It is an invitation to a rational, incentive-based, and responsibility-driven approach to civil justice—one that rewards cooperation, sanctions procedural opportunism, and places effective dispute resolution at the centre of public policy.

How to Support This Non-Manifesto

This is not a document to be formally signed.

It is an open framework intended to foster reflection, dialogue, and shared responsibility.

No formal endorsement is required to express support for this approach.

It is sufficient to click the heart icon below and write your first and last name in the comments.

A simple gesture, signalling support for a civil justice system based on proportionality, sustainability, cooperation, responsibility, and effective conflict resolution.

MFSD – Promoting dialogue. Governing conflict. Creating value.