Justice Minister Ales Zalar stressed the importance of consensus seeking in dispute resolution as a basis for governance in modern societies, as he delivered the opening speech at a two-day international conference on alternative resolution of disputes in Ljubljana on Friday.

Slovenian Human Rights Ombudsman Zdenka Cebasek Travnik gave speach on Saturday when the conference hosted a regional forum for mediation and Southeastern Europe.

Minister Zalar pointed to the Slovenian judiciary system, which made a great step forward when it started offering mediation as a means of resolving disputes in court.

"If we don't want to become losers one and all, we now have to demand of all the subsequent governments and parliaments to make seeking a consensus between different interest groups a rule for solving complex social problems and disputes."

Jernej Sekolec, a vice president of the London Court of International Arbitration and the nominee for Slovenian arbiter in the international tribunal which will decide on Slovenian-Croatian border issues, told the following round table debate that companies usually considered mediation or arbitration a business decision.

Lorraine Brennan of the largest private alternative dispute resolution provider in the world, JAMS, which deals with trade disputes, meanwhile believes that the use of mediation will expand in the EU when it is no longer considered a sign of weakness, but a good economic decision that saves time and money.

Dubbed "Ten Years of Mediation in Slovenia", the conference was organised by the Justice Ministry and the Slovenian Mediators' Association under the honorary sponsorship of President Danilo Tuerk and features 200 participants from Europe, the US and Australia.