NCTDR Fellow Michael (Xuhui) Fang has shared a short update paper on the status of ODR in China. Many of us saw the law.com article describing the ways China is pushing ODR as it recovers from the pandemic, but Michael’s piece offers more inside background (as well as photos) on the advances taking place. From his paper:

‘In sum, the Supreme People’s Court is not unrealistic to issue the “Notice Regarding Online Litigation Amid the Coronavirus Battle”. The Supreme People’s Court understands that “Rome was not built in a day.” The reality is that the Chinese courts had used information and communication technology (ICT) as the fourth party to resolve the disputes long before coronavirus outbreak began in China. The spread of coronavirus has forced the Chinese courts to take full advantage of ICT across the country. Not only the three internet courts in Hangzhou，Beijing and Guangzhou but also other Chinese courts have moved trials online. As illustrated above， two people’s courts at the county level and one higher people’s courts at the provincial level applied remote trials to prevent “justice delayed” amid the epidemic. As we know, the face to face process has the risk of spreading coronavirus, violating the quarantine and isolation rule. Therefore, ODR becomes “Only Dispute Resolution” to avoid “justice delayed” in the Chinese court amid COVID-19 Battle. There is no choice.’

Read more: http://odr.info/files/china.pdf