Dear friends of the ODR,

2017 has open doors for the broadening of our activity.

First of all, I’ll gladly participate as speaker in  ODR2017 in Paris, June 12-13, 2017 .

On the other hand, I had the honor to give a five-hour workshop on the use of new technologies for conflict resolution at the 1st National Congress of Alternative Methods for Conflict Resolution and Restorative Justice (CEMAJUR in Spanish). It  took place in Tijuana, Mexico, from March 15 to 18.

I wanted to share with you the webpages of these two events

CEMAJUR 2017, TIJUANA, MEXICO

http://congreso.cemajur.com/

ODR 2017 PARIS 

http://odr2017.org/

 

Let’s keep the good work. I’m looking forward to see many of you in Paris!

Alberto

Dear friends,

with great satisfaction I share with you the invitation I received to participate as a speaker on May 11, in the opening conference of the V FONAMEC.

This event will take place in the Superior Court of Law of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where I’ll speak about New Technologies applied to Conflict Resolution. I hope to see many of my brazilian friends there!!!

This is the invitation (in portuguese)

TJRJ – de 10 a 12 de maio de 2017
Forum
PLATAFORMA DIGITAL- UMA JUSTIÇA PARA O SÉCULO XXI

March – July 2017
International Mediation Program Ser Mediador (Being a Mediator) – 1^st Cycle

Being a Mediator is an on-line International mediation cycle that gathers under a single title big figures of mediation around the world. During this first cycle, there’ll be five web conferences of two hours each, between the months of March and July, one per month. This unprecedented event will allow Spanish-speaking mediators from around the world to listen and ask questions (through on live translation), to important figures of the field of dispute resolution.

This program is co-organized by ODR Latinoamerica, Mediando Metálogos and Mediadores en Red, and it is recognized by the most important public organisms of Argentina, like the National Department of Mediation and Participative Methods of Conflict Resolution.

Let’s hope this first cycle sets precedent in the field of mediation, and that it provides its attendees new experiences and knowledge!

 

---

 

Conferences schedule

---

 

1st conference

Tuesday, March 28th 2017
Time: 14 hs. ARG
Speaker: William Ury
Subject: Getting to yes with yourself.  The greatest obstacle to successful agreements and satisfying relationships is not the other side. The biggest obstacle is ourselves. Uncover the inner obstacles that are keeping you from getting to Yes. Reach positive agreements with others, develop healthy relationships, make your business more productive, live a more satisfying life.

 

2nd conference

Friday, April 21^st 2017.
Time: 14 hs. ARG
Speaker: Fadhila Mammar
Subject: This conference intends to clarify the concept on interculturality. To identify the particularities of intercultural mediation, its scenarios and methodologic contributions. Finally, based on reflection and some examples, arrive to a better comprehension of the main conflicts of our time.

 

3rd conference

Tuesday, May 16 2017
Time: 14 hs. ARG
Speaker: Juan Carlos Vezzulla
Subject: by working on the effect of outsourcing and symbolization with the parties, and encouraging them to speak about themselves, the mediator can obtain a deeper reflection state. This function is most important in Restorative Mediation with teenagers to produce the passage from dependency to emancipation, taking responsibility for their actions, developing their identity and repair the damage caused to themselves and others.

 

4th conference

Tuesday, June 6 2017
Time: 14 hs. ARG
Speaker: Sara Cobb
Subject: Speaking of Violence. New contributions to the Circular – Narrative Mediation Model, explained through different mediation contexts. Evolution of conflict narrations. Explanation of the “Narrative Critique Theory”. Aesthetic as an ethic of the narrative practice. Resources to allow the destabilization and transformation of the conflict’s narratives.

 

5th conference

Tuesday, July 4 2017
Time: 14 hs. ARG
Speakers: Francisco Diez y Marinés Suares
Subject: Reflexive, critical and integrative summary of the contributions made by the 4 main speakers, specially focused around ‘Being Mediator’ in different contexts and in different fields of application and development. The objective is to carry out a complex consolidation of our role.

 

Would you like to attend? Sign up to the pre-registration (Spanish)

Universities interested in the Cycle, please contact Alberto Elisavetsky: elisavetsky@gmail.com 

 

Leah Wing has just completed an amazingly well-referenced article for the IJODR on Ethical Principles for Online Dispute Resolution.  This article attempts to consolidate all of the ODR standards work from the past fifteen years into a clear set of principles that should serve to guide the development of global ODR moving forward.  In the article, Leah describes these standards as a “GPS” for the development of the field.  From the abstract:

“As ODR is increasingly incorporated into legislation, regulation and a wide variety of sectors in society, it is timely to explore the importance of ethical principles specifically for ODR. In the hope of contributing to these efforts, this article examines the benefits and challenges of articulating a set of ethical principles to guide the development and implementation of ODR systems, technology and processes.”

This is an important milestone article for the ODR field writ large, and I strongly encourage you to check it out.

Richard Susskind just delivered a talk at University College-London laying out the “Case for Online Courts.”  He specifically mentions the upcoming books on ODR, Digital Justice (Katsh, Rabinovich-Einy) and New Handshake (Schmitz and Rule).  Check it out.

From the announcement:

“The ABA Section of Dispute Resolution has selected Ethan Katsh, Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, as the recipient of the 2017 D’Alemberte-Raven Award. Professor Katsh is widely recognized as the founder of the field of online dispute resolution (ODR). Along with Janet Rifkin, he conducted the eBay Pilot Project in 1999 that led to eBay’s current system that handles over sixty million disputes each year.”

Read the full text of the announcement here.

Congrats, Ethan!

On December 16th, the UN General Assembly adopted a Resolution regarding the Technical Notes generated by UNCITRAL’s ODR Working Group.

The Resolution reads, in part:

“The General Assembly:
1. Expresses its appreciation to the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law for preparing and adopting the Technical Notes on Online
Dispute Resolution as annexed to the report of the Commission on the work of its forty-ninth session;
2. Requests the Secretary-General to publish the text of the Technical Notes through all appropriate means, including electronically, in the six official languages of the United Nations, and to disseminate that text broadly to Governments and other interested bodies;
3. Recommends that all States and other stakeholders use the Technical Notes in designing and implementing online dispute resolution systems for crossborder commercial transactions;
4. Requests all States to support the promotion and use of the Technical Notes.”

You can read the full text of the Resolution here.

The registration link is now live for the 2017 ODR Working Group meeting in Paris!

Click here to reserve your spot.

Full information about the conference is available on the ICC web site, at ODR2017.org, or via the Save the Date flyer.

Hope to see you there…

 

The Judicial Joint Technology Committee released a new Resource Bulletin on November 30th exploring ODR and its utility within courts, entitled “Online Dispute Resolution and the Courts.”  Here is the abstract:

“What began as a niche tool for non-binding, out-of-court dispute resolution between private parties, Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) has grown to become a distinct and particularly effective dispute resolution mechanism encompassing a broad array of artificial intelligence technologies used to resolve a growing variety of business, consumer, and even international disputes. Some courts have successfully piloted ODR for landlord-tenant, small claims, and domestic disputes, and for minor criminal cases such as traffic and code enforcement violations. ODR presents opportunities for courts to expand services while simultaneously improving customer experience and satisfaction. This Quick Response Guide provides a basic primer in Online Dispute Resolution and lays out implementation models as well as court-specific opportunities and considerations.”

Read the full report here.

The Geneva Internet Dispute Resolution Policies 1.0 (GIDRP 1.0) have just launched at www.geneva-internet-disputes.ch

The GIDRP 1.0 project has emerged as a result of an international conference that took place at the University of Geneva on 17 – 18 June 2015, at which experts presented and discussed selected facets of the numerous legal challenges surrounding Internet-related disputes (www.internet-disputes.ch).

In the months following the conference, a team of researchers from the University of Geneva took up the mission to draft policy proposals on the following four issues:
– Which national courts shall have jurisdiction in Internet-related disputes ?
– How to structure an alternative dispute resolution system for Internet-related disputes ?
– How shall disputes about the licensing of Standard Essential Patents (SEP) under Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) terms be solved?
– How shall immunities apply on the Internet?

The GIDRP 1.0 is a digital policy project: it is not carved in stone and is not even materialized in any paper publication. The reason for this is that the GIDRP 1.0 is conceived as a work in progress (more precisely: a policy work in progress), that must be discussed, criticized and improved by a process of broad consultation and inclusive participation.

Learn more at www.geneva-internet-disputes.ch, and contact the program administrator at gidrp@unige.ch if you have an interest in participating in the next steps of the project which may materialize in GIDRP 2.0.