Formation and Development of The Institution of Mediation in The Socio-Legal Space

Abstract

The article traces the formation and development of mediation as an institution within the socio-legal space, treating it as a phenomenon of dual nature – at once a social practice for the consensual settlement of conflict and a legal institution with its own procedures, professional roles, and enforcement mechanisms. Through institutional, historical-legal, and comparative-legal analysis, the study reconstructs the trajectory along which mediation has moved from informal negotiation practice, professionalised through the alternative dispute resolution movement, toward codified legal form. Particular attention is given to international harmonisation – the UNCITRAL Model Law of 2002, the European Union’s Mediation Directive of 2008, and the Singapore Convention of 2018 – and to national codification in the post-Soviet socio-legal space, where the Russian law of 2010 and the Uzbek law of 2018 gave the procedure statutory footing. It is argued that the durability of the institution rests on the alignment of its social function – access to justice and the restoration of relations – with a legal form that renders mediated agreements predictable and, increasingly, enforceable.