h/t to Michael and Andy for the heads up on this recent announcement indicating support from President Xi Jinping for the Hangzhou Internet Court (apologies for the low quality Google Translate translation, but you can click the link to see the original Mandarin) :

“General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, the President of the Central Military Commission Chairman of the Central Committee to deepen the reform of the leading group leader Xi Jinping June 26 morning to convene the central comprehensive reform of the leading group of the thirty-sixth meeting and published an important speech.  He stressed that focusing on systematic, holistic and synergy is an inherent requirement for deepening reform and an important way to promote reform…

The meeting stressed that the establishment of Hangzhou Internet Court, the judicial initiative to adapt to the development trend of the Internet a major institutional innovation. In accordance with the law orderly, active and secure, follow the rules of the law to meet the requirements of the masses, to explore the rules of the litigation case, improve the trial mechanism to enhance the effectiveness of the trial, in order to maintain network security, resolve network disputes, promote the Internet and economic and social depth integration, etc. to provide judicial protection…”

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Daniel Dimov has released his dissertation on CODR, or Crowdsourced Dispute Resolution:

“Although crowdsourced online dispute resolution (CODR) is one of the newest forms of dispute resolution, it has gained tremendous success. For example, Taobao User Dispute Resolution System resolved 238,000 online-shopping disputes in 2013 and attracted more than 575,000 crowd jurors from December 2012 to July 2014. To compare, in the second quarter of 2014, English courts dealt with just 11,100 civil (excluding family) hearings or trials. The difference between Taobao User Dispute Resolution System and the English court system lies not only in the number of cases which each of them resolves, but also in the fact that the jurors participating in the Chinese CODR procedure do not get any remuneration.”

I’ve been reading it today and it’s very thorough and well done.  I think this is the most in-depth analysis of crowdsourced ODR every completed, and it will be of great interest for ODR researchers and students.  I definitely recommend checking it out.

From his Supervisor Prof.dr. H.J. van den Herik: “In Crowdsourced Online Dispute Resolution Daniel Dimov has achieved a breakthrough in thinking on dispute resolution. Dimov’s dissertation provides a clear answer to the question of the role of ODR in the judicial system. It should be Crowdsourced ODR. His dissertation shows the developments occurring in  law and information technology: CODR is cheap, fast, democratic and fair. Daniel Dimov has demonstrated tremendous tenacity in combining his ideas on CODR with our interpretation of objective procedural fairness.”

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Priyankar Bhunia on OpenGovAsia.com:

“The State Courts in Singapore have introduced an electronic case filing and management system, called the Community Justice and Tribunals System (CJTS) on July 10, which allows parties involved in ‘Small Claims’ disputes to file claims and access court e-services from the comfort of their homes or any place with an internet connection.

​The Small Claims Tribunals are part of the State Courts of Singapore. The Tribunals were established on 1 February 1985 to provide a quick and inexpensive forum for the resolution of small claims (not exceeding S$10,000 or up to S$20,000 if both parties agree in writing) between consumers and suppliers. Types of claims could include contracts for the sale of goods or for the provision of services involving skill and labour, damage to property (except for damage arising from the use of a motor vehicle), certain cases under the Consumer Protection (Fair Trading Act) such as the refund of motor vehicle deposits and lease of residential premises not exceeding 2 years.

Previously, claimants were required to go to court to file claims, make payments, and attend consultations and hearings. CJTS allows pre-filing assessment and filing of the claim to be done online. For pre-filing, users will be asked a series of questions to determine if their disputes can be filed in the Tribunals. There are guided online forms to help in filing cases, and users can upload attachments/ supporting documents for their cases.

CJTS offers an electronic diary to schedule hearing dates and timeslots for accepted applications. Users will be able to look up their case details online, view submitted documents and correspondences from court and check hearing dates.

The system also has an e-Negotiation feature, which allows the parties to negotiate and reach a settlement on the disputed claims without having to go to the courts.”

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If you haven’t heard of brāv.org you should check it out.  It’s one of the most innovative ODR sites available right now — and it’s tailored specifically to appeal to the younger generation.  The user experience is quite slick, and the platform is well thought out.

brāv is holding an e-event tomorrow at 12pm Eastern (9am Pacific) to train users on its platform.  It’s free to attend, and I think it will be quite interesting.  Please attend if you have the time… I look forward to seeing you there.

https://www.youtube.com/c/BravOrganization/live

Michael Cross has a new piece on the Law Society Gazette website detailing a lecture delivered this month by Sir Terence Etherton about the new UK Online Court.  From the article:

“The failure of a pioneering online court in The Netherlands should not deter efforts to build more ambitious version in England and Wales, the Master of the Rolls has said. In a lecture this month, Sir Terence Etherton laid out for the first time the scale of the ambition behind the proposed ‘Online Solutions Court’, which will be designed to operate largely without lawyers and to dispense with ‘preventive justice’… the online court would ensure the core functions of the civil courts are ‘not simply maintained but augmented’. While the process will be designed so that individuals can access the system without the need for legal advice, he conceded that lawyers ‘will no doubt continue to play an important role in many cases’ especially those that proceed to disposal by a judge.”

Read more at https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/practice/online-court-wont-repeat-failure-of-dutch-model-mor-claims/5061641.article

Great, frank assessment on the law-tech-a2j.org blog of the challenges behind the Rechtwijzer project, with some valuable takeaways and lessons learned:

“The main providers of justice – such as courts, legal aid boards, ministries and law firms – cannot implement online supported dispute resolution under the current regulatory regimes. Offering ODR to citizens as an independent service is an option, but it is uncertain whether it will succeed without some form of government support. Although many forms of alternative dispute resolution failed to make a breakthrough in the past, a smart ODR offering may yet be able to do this… The broader lesson is about innovation in legal dispute resolution systems. That is hard to achieve. ODR is no different from mediation, problem-solving courts, fast tracks, ombudsmen and countless other attempts to replace traditional court procedures by more innovative mechanisms. The demand for better procedures from citizens is huge. But the government institutions to which we entrust adjudication and legal aid do not have processes for implementing and scaling up innovation. Truly opening up to innovation. That should happen first.”

Read the full article here.

One of the most dynamic presentations in Paris at ODR2017.org was from Liam Moore, Founder and CEO of www.anolivebranch.com, an ODR platform based in Ireland.  There’s no replacement for seeing Liam in person, but fortunately he’s put together a youtube video that covers some of the same ground.  Check it out here:

Read more at http://www.anolivebranch.com/

Ayelet Sela, a long time ODR pioneer (and now Professor at Bar Ilan University Faculty of Law) has published a great article entitled “Streamlining Justice: How Online Courts Can Resolve the Challenges of Pro Se Litigation” in the Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy, Vol. 26, No. 2, 2016.   This piece is an excellent distillation of the value ODR can bring to court and justice-sector resolution systems.  Check it out here.

Abstract:

“The tide of pro se litigation in the American justice system imposes significant constraints on self-represented litigants’ (SRLs) access to justice and courts’ ability to administer justice. Mitigating the challenges requires a systemic institutional and procedural reform. Advancing this approach, the Article proposes that online courts would alleviate many of the challenges associated with pro se litigation, and puts this proposition to an empirical test. To that end, the Article analyzes the challenges experienced by SRLs and courts and models the procedural and technological properties that would promote SRLs’ “day in court” as well as courts’ provision of fair and efficient access to justice. Based on the analysis and on a review of successful implementations of judicial online dispute resolution (JODR) systems, the Article proposes a detailed policy design framework for a JODR system for pro se litigation. Finally, the Article reports and discusses the results of an experiment evaluating the effect of the proposed framework on SRLs’ procedural justice experiences.”

Long time ODR pioneer Vincent Tilman was interviewed on the television program On N’est Pas Des Pigeons about the new Belgian Consumer Ombuds site ombudsmanducommerce.be.  Check out the video here: https://www.rtbf.be/auvio/detail_un-ombudsman-du-commerce-pour-la-belgique?id=2212151

Jayne Reardon in the ABA Journal’s Legal Rebels blog:

“According to the book Digital Justice: Technology and the Internet of Disputes, disputes arise in 3 to 5 percent of online transactions, totaling over $700 million in e-commerce disputes in 2015 alone. Millions are overcharged, find credit report mistakes, are hacked, subjected to identity theft or are harassed while playing online games. ODR tools for resolving disputes include substituting software-based decision-making for the exchange of information that typically characterizes the mediation process. In 2012, eBay claimed it handled more than 60 million disputes between buyers and sellers by providing software that assisted the parties to negotiate a satisfactory outcome over 80 percent of the time. Alibaba, as of last year the world’s largest retailer, generating more revenue than Amazon.com and eBay combined, handles hundreds of millions of disputes per year.

So there are a lot of disputes, but the amounts at issue are generally small, and the buyer and seller are often in different countries, aided by distributors in yet a third or fourth location. This puts notions of subject matter jurisdiction and service of process a-spinning.

That’s where technology enters the picture as a way to efficiently and equitably resolve disputes. The premise of the Digital Justice authors is that access to justice can be enabled by software and mouse clicks just as in the old days, it was affected by the hours a court was open or how distant it was located from one’s home. Experimentation in small claims online courts is happening in the United Kingdom, British Columbia, the Netherlands and spottily in the United States.

Beyond resolution, the authors challenge us to think about how people could be better served by the law if we focus on preventing the relationship from erupting into a full-blown dispute in the first place…”

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