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One of the legacies of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) will be its many trial and appeal judgments with significant length. These are accompanied by a ‘reasoned opinion in writing’ which drastically varies in size. Those written reasoned opinions, also referred to as judgments, serve an important formal and tangible purpose. They are intergovernmental judicial decision-making records of judicially-determined factual and legal findings and conclusions concerning atrocities committed in the former Yugoslavia. Politically, they serve a less tangible, but no less important, purpose—as the Tribunal’s contribution to the restoration and maintenance of peace in the former Yugoslavia. Yet, for possessing such importance, little is known about how the judgments come into existence. Who drafts them and how and what are the stages? Who are the legal support staff involved? What determines structure, content, language, and style? How is an opinion ‘reasoned’? What has been the impact of ICTY judgments? This chapter seeks to answer these questions.

This chapter discusses the different procedures involved whenever a dismissal is tested for its fairness. The discussion also shows how the different procedural stages interact with each other. One of the main focuses in this chapter is the conciliation stage, because its emphasis on the monetary settlements rather than strict procedural regularity seems calculated to undermine any legal support for the idea that employers should be required to adopt fair disciplinary procedures. The discussion also looks at an examination of the interpretation placed by Industrial Tribunals on the concept of fair dismissal procedures.

Over the last 15 years, Portugal has increasingly developed mediation as a means of alternative dispute resolution. The legislature has so far adopted a piecemeal approach and created independent mediation regimes for different sectors, such as low-value disputes, family law, labour law and criminal law. The implementation of the EU Mediation Directive in 2009 left the existing regulations largely untouched, but introduced provisions of general applicability for the first time. Portuguese mediation law is characterised by a considerable level of State control: State institutions function as the first port of call for mediation and supervise the admission of mediators. Mediation proceedings are kept inexpensive for the parties, and outside the formalised structures they are denied legal support. The practical results of mediation, which is still entirely voluntary, have been promising but there has not yet been any breakthrough.