Mediation has been the subject of much discussion in recent years, and countless members of society consider using it, everyone from police officers and social workers to judges and security guards. Mediation is trendy, and we therefore need to distinguish, conceptually speaking, between "media­tion activities" and "mediation authorities" (Bonafe-Schmitt 1998, 198) in order to avoid confusion. While social workers and police officers certainly perform mediation activities in the context of their work, i.e. by reconciling conflicting parties, they are not mediators. This term is reserved for media­tion authorities: organisations or people whose primary or secondary role is mediation, to the exclusion of all other professional practices.