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Preface The location of this first ODRworkshop.org is Edinburgh. The date is June 28 2003, a day after the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence & Law. Online Dispute Resolution is an interesting topic for people with an AI & Law background. ODR is by nature electronic, so the parties to the dispute are supported by Information Technology. As in most domains, intelligent support is welcome: AI & Law can help in delivering this. We are at the verge of a new era in which ODR will become more and more an alternative to off line methods of dispute resolution. Even courts are moving online. One of today’s challenges is the effective use of (new) technology. The current program is not only about technology, but also about legally oriented topics. The ODR workshop is a forum for the exchange of ideas between people with different backgrounds such as providers of ODR-services, and researchers in the field of ADR/ODR, argumentation, negotiation, and AI & Law. Developing successful ODR is primarily a multi-disciplinary enterprise. Notwithstanding the authors’ various backgrounds there is common ground: an interest in ODR. Before briefly introducing the papers, I want to thank all members of the program committee: Eugene Clark, Thomas Gordon, Ethan Katsh, Colin Rule, Ernie Thiessen, Bart Verheij, Doug Walton, and John Zeleznikow. Without them this workshop could not have been held. All organisation, including the handling of registration and the printing of the proceedings, was done by the local organisers of the Faculty of Law of University of Edinburgh: thanks very much! Finally, it is great that the attendees have come from all over the world to attend this workshop: Australia, Canada, Germany, The Netherlands, Scotland, Switzerland, UK, USA, etc. Julia Hörnle discusses the recent European Union Green paper on ADR. Surprisingly, most of the questions in the Green paper are not specifically about ODR. The addressed topics are, however, relevant for ODR. Hörnle discusses subsequently the validity and enforceability of ADR clauses, suspension of limitation periods, confidentiality versus transparency, enforceability of the result, and training and ethical rules for neutrals. Her main conclusion is that further studies on each of these issues is required, and that the European Commission should support initiatives raising awareness of ADR. In Towards an online negotiation environment: legal principles, technical requirements and the need for close cooperation Arno Lodder & Stephanie Bol describe a research proposal which has a threefold aim. First, a collection of legal principles is drafted that should guarantee a fair and legitimate ODR process. Second, a collection of technical requirements is drafted that should guarantee that the ODR process is convenient to use and adequately support the parties. Close co-operation is seen as crucial to obtain accurate collections of both principles and requirements. Finally, a generic online negotiation environment is implemented that takes into account both the principles and requirements. Melissa Conley Tyler & Di Bretherton present in Seventy-six and Counting: An Analysis of ODR Sites a survey of the current state of online alternative dispute resolution (online ADR) through an analysis of 76 ODR sites from around the world. The research was conducted as part of an investigation of online ADR conducted for the Department of Justice, Victoria, Australia between February and March 2003. The paper presents statistical information and trend analysis of the 76 online ADR sites assessed, including services offered, communication methods used, type of disputes dealt with, fee structure, privacy and security measures and current operations. Although most providers are still USA-based (currently 43), Europe is catching up (at the moment 20). Thomas Schultz gives an analysis of the role of government in ODR. He sees basically two lines of ‘state interference’. First, governments can help in getting people to use ODR, by making ODR mandatory for certain cases, accreditation schemes, clearing houses, and online appeals. Second, the government could act as an ODR provider. He concludes that, although private initiatives are essential for ODR, to become a widely used system ODR needs government. Orna Rabinovich-Einy argues in The Ford-Firestones of the Future: Resolving Offline Disputes in an Online Society that the arrival of new technologies is likely to generate a more equitable arena for users of dispute resolution institutions. The Ford-Firestone case (the recall of one type of Firestone/Bridgestone tires used mainly on the Ford Explorers, in the light of mounting evidence that these tires were faulty), is used to illustrate and analyse the changing trends in dispute resolution. John Zeleznikow & Emilia Belucci discuss The conflict between negotiation and litigation when building mediation decision support systems. They describe a number of previously developed systems such as Split-up, DEUS, and Family Winner. Also, a new project is introduced that is about to commence on the development and testing of a United Kingdom web-based decision support system for use in improving the consistency and predictability of adjudicators’ decisions in building construction disputes. Malgorzata Mochol aims to come up with a set of design patterns for discourse support systems. Three types of discourse are distinguished: argumentation, deliberation, and negotiation. The distinction is used to analyse three different support systems. Subsequently diagrams are presented for each of the discourse types that can be used for the development of discourse support systems. Ben Davis elaborates upon one of the crucial issues in e-commerce in general and Online Dispute Resolution in particular: how to create trust. In his Disciplining ODR Prototypes: True Trust through True Independence he stresses that independence is a essential but often neglected topic. Without independence, ODR is essentially a computerised and glorified form of one-sided customer service, an administrative process that is at best ersatz dispute resolution and, at worst, a fraud when notwithstanding that one-sided bias it claims to users to be independent. The paper suggests several ways to realise independence. Gerard Vreeswijk explores in A simple scheme to structure and process the information of parties in online forms of alternative dispute resolution the use of argumentation in ODR. He addresses the difficult topic of how to structure and process the information that is exchanged between negotiating parties. He provides solutions and also notes that there is more research needed. For instance, argumentation is one thing, but users also need to know when they should stop arguing and proceed to the next phase.
Besides the presentations of accepted papers, there are two invited addresses. Ethan Katsh has been involved in ODR since the first day of its appearance on the internet in the mid 1990s and has remained one the leading ODR-people ever since. Ernest Thiessen developed one of the most sophisticated negotiation tools available, the well-known Smartsettle. This tool is the result of many years of research I found out when reading Rule’s Online Dispute Resolution for business: even in the 1980s the tool was demonstrated offline. This workshop is meant to be the first in a series of workshops to be held on an annual basis. With this very fine collection of papers, this first ODRworkshop promises to be a lasting experience. Arno R. Lodder (Program Chair) Amsterdam, June 2003 | |||||||
