Irvine, Calif. – The JAMS Foundation is pleased to announce the 14 Fellows who have been named to the 2024 class of the Weinstein JAMS International Fellowship Program. Each year, the Foundation approves fellowships up to $20,000 in support of projects developed by Fellowship applicants. Fellows join in this program from across the globe, particularly in countries that do not have an established culture of ADR for cases in litigation.
Since 2008, the Weinstein JAMS International Fellowship Program has brought together outstanding individuals to learn, collaborate and help advance the field of alternative dispute resolution in dozens of countries. We believe that the success of this program year after year is a testament to the passion of each Fellow and the investments that all those involved have made into creating an enriching, fulfilling program. I look forward to another excellent year and many more to come.
- Hon. Daniel Weinstein (Ret.)
The Weinstein JAMS International Fellowship Program is named to honor the contributions of JAMS neutral Hon. Daniel Weinstein (Ret.). Founded in 2008 and supported by the JAMS Foundation in partnership with Judge Weinstein, the program is designed to provide opportunities for qualified individuals outside of the United States to study alternative dispute resolution (ADR) processes and practices in the U.S. and to assist them in their ability to advance dispute resolution in their home countries. Since its inception, the Weinstein JAMS International Fellowship Program has trained over 150 Fellows from more than 85 countries.
We are delighted to welcome the 2024 cohort to the Fellowship Program. Each year offers us a unique opportunity to support and learn from the diverse and vibrant career journeys of our fellows, drawing on the experiences that have shaped their professional goals. We take pride in the program's evolution and remain dedicated to investing in ADR professionals worldwide.
- Ellen Bass, director of the Weinstein JAMS International Fellowship Program
Listed below are the 14 Fellows selected for the 2024 Weinstein JAMS International Fellowship Program.
Viktoriia Antonova (Ukraine) – Judge Antonova has served on the Commercial Court for the Kyiv Region for over 16 years, with significant experience in commercial dispute resolution. She has worked in the judicial system of Ukraine for more than 25 years and is a member of the European Association of Judges for Mediation (GEMME) Ukraine and the International Association of Women Judges. A trainer at the National School for Judges of Ukraine, she previously served as head of the Center of Excellence and Model Courts Creation at the Supreme Commercial Court. During her Fellowship, she plans to gain experience in mediation, especially in connection with the courts, to contribute to judicial efforts to develop a culture of peaceful dispute resolution in Ukraine.
Worrawong Atcharawongchai (Thailand) – Judge Atcharawongchai is the presiding judge at the Central Intellectual Property and International Trade Court, which has exclusive jurisdiction over matters related to intellectual property and international trade in Thailand. He holds a Ph.D. in law from the University of Hong Kong and an LL.M. in international and comparative law from Chicago-Kent College of Law. He previously served as executive director of the Thai Arbitration Institute, where he led the Institute’s strategic ADR initiatives during the pandemic. While in the U.S., he will focus on acquiring new dispute resolution techniques while gaining a deeper understanding of advanced mediation and arbitration practices to elevate the quality and efficacy of dispute resolution processes and procedures in Thailand.
Jean-Christophe Barth-Coullaré (Switzerland) – Mr. Barth-Coullaré is a business mediator at HASE Solutions, where he has assisted clients in setting up dispute avoidance mechanisms and resolving their commercial problems through deal mediation and consensual dispute resolution since 2013. He is an accredited mediator and member of the board of the Federation Suisse Mediation. Additionally, he is the executive director of the World Association of Public-Private Partnership Units & Professionals (WAPPP), a multi-stakeholder global network, which brings together public-private partnership (PPP) professionals from around the world to help build innovative partnerships in real economy infrastructure projects. As part of his Fellowship, he intends to further develop the use of mediation in the international PPP ecosystem.
Lois Chisompola Sikwenda (Zambia) – Ms. Chisompola Sikwenda is an ADR practitioner, co-founder and director of the Institute for Mediation Excellence, one of Zambia’s first mediation centers to provide mediation and training to build the capacity and quality of mediators in the country. She previously served as senior research advocate to the president of the Constitutional Court, district registrar and mediation coordinator of the Committee on Court-Annexed Mediation. As part of her Fellowship, she intends to engage with dispute system designers to establish a comprehensive ADR system for different sectors of the country to contribute to the improvement of public and private dispute management and enhance access to justice in Zambia.
Petra Drgoňová (Slovakia) – Ms. Drgoňová provides legal services to individuals and commercial firms in Central and Eastern Europe, with an emphasis on civil, corporate, commercial and international law. An independent mediator for civil matters, she is a co-founder of the European Mediation Institute (EMI), which contributes to the development of mediation in Slovakia and within the European Union via cooperation and knowledge sharing with mediation centers and other ADR institutions in Slovakia and abroad. As part of her Fellowship in the U.S., she intends to learn more about the latest innovations in dispute resolution practice, including hybrid and online forms, particularly related to commercial disputes.
Mohamed Lotfi El Ajeri (Tunisia) – Mr. El Ajeri is a lawyer and managing partner of El Ajeri Lawyers (EAL), one of the most well-known law firms in Tunisia and North Africa. A negotiator, mediator and arbitrator, he is chairman of the Conflict Prevention and Mediation Commission of the International Association of Lawyers (UIA) and vice-chairman of the Tunis Arbitration and Conciliation Centre, and he serves as an approved mediator for the World Bank’s Office of the Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman (CAO), the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the African Development Bank (ADB). Upon completion of his Fellowship, he intends to establish a center dedicated to providing dispute resolution services and training in Tunisia and throughout the Maghreb region.
Muhammad Quraish Khan (Pakistan) – Dr. Quraish Khan is the assistant inspector general in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police Department in Peshawar, where he is the focal person for the police annexed dispute resolution councils (DRCs). He is also a resource person on ADR for the School of Local Government and the Department of Criminology at the University of Peshawar. A senior police officer with 20 years of experience, he has served on command, staff, investigation and training assignments, and as a national policing specialist for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Pakistan. As part of his Fellowship in the U.S., he plans to develop new training modules for DRCs and the creation of community online dispute resolution (ODR) initiatives.
Philipp J. Koenig (Luxembourg) – Mr. Koenig leads the dispute resolution work of the accountability mechanism of the European Investment Bank (EIB) Group, where his dispute resolution practice primarily consists of designing processes in the context of disputes arising out of development projects around the world. He further serves as an expert panel member for dispute resolution of the International Climate Initiative. He holds a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard Kennedy School of Government and a Ph.D. from Maastricht University. During his Fellowship, he hopes to gain a deeper understanding of how dispute resolution can be used to effectively manage natural resource conflicts.
Dumitru Lefter (Moldova) – Mr. Lefter is director of the Mediation Center of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry and member of the Mediation Council of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Moldova. A certified mediator, he is the co-founder and president of the Mediation Academy and Legal Studies and serves as an expert, sharing his experience in the development of mediation organizations and the implementation of best practices in legal systems in Europe. As part of his Fellowship, he will enhance his understanding of the factors that have influenced the development of mediation in the U.S. to contribute to a more informed and strategic approach to the adoption of mediation, not only in Moldova, but in other jurisdictions where he is actively involved.
Yuna Potomkina (Ukraine) – Ms. Potomkina leads the Alternative Dispute Resolution practice at Asters Law Firm. She is a member of the board of the Mediation Committee of the Ukrainian Bar Association, an honorary member of the National Association of Mediators of Ukraine and an expert of the working group on drafting the law on mediation and signing of the Singapore Convention on Mediation by Ukraine. She further served as an advisor to the minister of defense and vice prime minister of Ukraine. While in the U.S., she hopes to enhance her ADR skills to assist in changing the culture of dispute resolution to align with international standards and foster a more efficient and effective legal system in Ukraine.
Albertus Aldio Primadi (Indonesia) – Mr. Primadi is an associate in the Dispute Resolution Practice Group at Assegaf Hamzah & Partners, in association with Rajah & Tann Asia. He is an accredited mediator with RCIS (U.K.) and JTC (Indonesia), an accredited tribunal secretary at the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre and a certified member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (U.K.). He earned his LL.M. in international business regulation, litigation and arbitration from New York University School of Law as a recipient of a full scholarship from the Indonesian government. He aims to leverage his JAMS Fellowship insights to advance mediation and arbitration in Indonesia, including developing dispute resolution centers in Jakarta and Surabaya and providing recommendations to the Indonesian government to enhance the country’s ADR framework.
Magdalena Sienko (Poland) – Judge Sienko is a member of the European Association of Judges for Mediation (GEMME) and judge of the civil division of the Regional Court of Warsaw, the largest court in Poland. She was previously a judge in the First Civil Division of the District Court for Warsaw South-Prague, a multicultural and densely populated district of Warsaw where many refugees from Ukraine and Belarus and immigrants from Asia, Africa, the Middle East, India and the former Soviet Union reside. She further served as chief specialist in the Mediation Unit of the Strategy and European Funds Department of the Ministry of Justice. As part of her Fellowship project, she will focus on learning new approaches and solutions to mediating multicultural disputes to contribute to changing perceptions of conflict to help build peace in the court, in Warsaw and throughout Poland.
Henriette Sigmund (Germany) – Dr. Sigmund is a lawyer in the Dispute Resolution Group of PricewaterhouseCoopers Legal AG, where she practices litigation and arbitration and focuses on advancing ADR methods, in particular, mediation. She further serves as a mediator and coach and is a member of the German Arbitration Institute (DIS) and co-founder of the Frankfurt Disputes Circle, a network for exchange of dispute resolution practitioners in Frankfurt. She holds a doctoral degree on legal theory, comparative law and economics from Goethe University, Frankfurt. During her Fellowship in the U.S., she intends to enhance her knowledge and experience in mediation to promote the use of mediation as a viable alternative to court and arbitration proceedings in Germany.
Eugenia Simó García (Spain) – Ms. Simó García is a lawyer and career diplomat who currently serves as political assistant to the deputy secretary general for political affairs of the European External Action Service. She holds an LL.M. from Columbia Law School, where she graduated with honors as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. She is currently a prospective Ph.D. candidate at the Autonomous University of Madrid in the Law Faculty's Peace and Human Rights Group. Her doctoral research focuses on the design of peace processes through mediation that enables underrepresented sectors of civil society to participate in the negotiation process. While in the U.S., she will concentrate on enhancing her understanding of conflict resolution centered on peacebuilding and mediation. Upon completion of her Fellowship, she plans to resume her work as a diplomat and advance gender equality in the Spanish diplomatic corps by increasing women’s participation in international negotiations and peace processes.
About the JAMS Foundation
The nonprofit JAMS Foundation was established in 2002 by JAMS, the largest private provider of alternative dispute resolution services worldwide. The mission of the JAMS Foundation is to provide financial assistance for conflict resolution initiatives with national and international impact and to share its dispute resolution expertise for the benefit of the public interest.
The Foundation is funded entirely by contributions from JAMS neutrals, executives and associates, and a substantial annual donation from JAMS. To uphold the company's core value of neutrality, the Foundation accepts no donations outside of JAMS. The Foundation currently comprises 300 principal benefactors and has provided more than $13 million in grant funding since its inception.
About JAMS – Local Solutions. Global Reach.
Founded in 1979, JAMS is the largest private provider of alternative dispute resolution services worldwide. JAMS successfully resolves and manages business and legal disputes by providing efficient, cost-effective and impartial ways to overcome barriers at any stage of conflict. JAMS offers customized in-person, virtual and hybrid resolution services locally and globally through a combination of industry-specific experience, first-class client service, the latest technology and highly trained mediators and arbitrators.
With a roster of over 450 neutrals and 29 locations, JAMS resolves thousands of the world’s important cases every year. JAMS neutrals are adept at managing the resolution process whether they are conducting in-person, virtual or hybrid hearings.
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