Arbitration, International Mediation, and the Widening of the Alternative Dispute Resolution Space: Bloated Expectations or a Matter of Time

Abstract

It is undisputable that dispute does arise from almost every transaction in people’s lives. Consequently, court procedures –litigation- have been developed over the years to ensure there is fairness and justice in resolving disputes arising from such transactions. Well recognized and praised at first, however, litigation got to be extremely difficult as it could not protect parties’ privacy and ensure confidentiality. Moreover, it became incredibly expensive, consumes time and could not provide for a win-win resolution of disputes among other challenges. Thus, ADR became the hope of a common man and last resort for dispute settlement. Although, it remains unclear if Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) is as age long as litigation. Nevertheless, ADR could be said to have been resorted to in order to mitigate, water-down and limit the hardship caused by litigation. Today, the globe is at the sojourn oscillating between the relevance of ADR over litigation and vice versa. Hence, a prerequisite to understand whether expanding the space of Alternative Dispute Resolution are bloated expectations or a matter of time. In this paper, arbitration and international mediation will be discussed starting from their historical background and importance. Also, this paper will further examine whether widening the space of Arbitration, International Mediation and ADR in general are bloated expectations or a matter of time.