While I have had a certain experience in international adjudication and arbitration, I should disclose at the outset that my experience as a mediator is confined to a single, unsuccessful attempt to mediate between a foreign investor and a State. The State was and is governed by one of Africa's more effective governments. The company was the country's major foreign investor and its largest private employer, which paid the country's highest wages, and which had operated to its benefit and that of the host country for decades. It made no sense for either party for the company to cease operations, and it made great sense for both of them to resolve their genuine differences.

But both parties came to the mediation with inflexible demands upon the other. Neither party evidenced a willingness to modify those demands. The company insisted that the first step, to be taken within days by the Government, was to withdraw certain measures that it had recently imposed upon the company's operations. The Government did not respond to that call. After less than two days, the company requested that the mediation terminate, at which point the Government's large delegation, which included a Minister and the Attorney General, departed.