Context Of Dispute Resolution Research Articles

Access to Justice for the Chinese Consumer – Handling Consumer Disputes in Contemporary China Book Review

Given this confusing landscape, it is not surprising that China’s consumer grievance handling procedure is largely under-studied. Although it has continuously sparked intense interest among English-speaking scholars and commentators, few have had the guts and will to approach this topic in a holistic way (pp. 7, 8). Against this backdrop, Dr. Ling Zhou, currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute of International Asian Studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong released Access to Justice for the Chinese Consumer – Handling Consumer Disputes in Contemporary China in 2020. The work was inspired by her PhD research done at the Oxford Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, based on invaluable data collected from a year of field work of “participation observation and in-depth interviews through internships” (p.3) of important consumer organizations and administrative bodies in Shenzhen, a Southern China city of thriving technology trade and cross-border commerce. To put Shenzhen’s consumption power into a dispute resolution context, the local Consumer Council “deals with more than 20,000 complaints each year” (p.48), a number not including cases that are resolved through judicial means. Like most socio-legal work employing similar ethnographic methods, Dr. Zhou’s book was never merely about black letter law and rules that can be easily tracked down by a statutory search. It is about the living law of ongoing consumer dispute resolution practices in China and how various actors repeatedly interact with the system to shape and be shaped by this extremely vibrant process.

The language and style of ‘awards’

This paper, the second in a short series, deals with the language and style of awards within the wider context of dispute resolution. It reviews past and current judicial and quasi-judicial practice and guidance.

Connectivity and Decoupling: Belt and Road Dispute Resolution in a Fractured Trade Environment

A core theme of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (“BRI”) is connectivity, which extends to BRI-related dispute resolution. But BRI-related advances in dispute resolution connectivity will be occurring in an international trade environment that is becoming increasingly fractured; the extent to which a fractured trade environment might impede BRI-related opportunities for dispute resolution connectivity merits close consideration. A range of initiatives in Asia lower the risk of states “detaching” themselves from China. Particularly with respect to dispute resolution, China has participated in the conclusion of a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement, the launch of the China International Commercial Court (“CICC”) and the International Commercial Dispute Prevention and Settlement Organization, as well as the development of a number of instruments that improve the enforceability of dispute resolution outcomes in a range of settings, including a few dozen bilateral treaties on judicial assistance as well as a set of multilateral instruments covering mediated settlement agreements (the Singapore Convention on Mediation), choice of court agreements (the Hague Choice of Court Convention), and court judgments (the Hague Judgments Convention). But a low risk of separation from China does not entail a low risk of criticism of China. Malaysia’s recent suspension, and subsequent resumption, of a few major BRI projects provides one clear example. In the particular context of dispute resolution, many responses to the launch of the CICC by China’s Supreme People’s Court have been critical or, at a minimum, skeptical. Rather than leading to separation, criticism instead can be a form of engagement. International engagement with the BRI and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank has been strong notwithstanding significant criticism of both initiatives. An increasingly fractured trade environment likely will not impede China’s advancement of dispute resolution connectivity, particularly given the active rulemaking and institution building occurring on China’s side of the divide.

The Differential Effects of Fear and Tranquility on Risk Taking When Probabilistic Information is Communicated in Verbal Terms

Verbal probability expressions are often used to communicate risk in decision making situations. We tested the argument that fear would lead to more pessimistic risk perceptions and higher risk aversion than tranquility when the verbal probability expression used to communicate risk is more (vs. less) ambiguous. In Experiment 1, using a dispute resolution context, we found that fear led to a lower impasse rate than tranquility when the probability of winning in court was described using the ambiguous probability word ‘a chance’ than when less ambiguous probability words were used (i.e., doubtful, probable). In Experiment 2, we replicated this effect using a risky-choice task. Participants in the fear condition were more likely to choose the safe option than those in the tranquil emotion condition when risk was communicated using the ambiguous probability word ‘a chance’ (vs. ‘doubtful’ and ‘probable’). The implications of these findings for emotion, risk taking, and risk communication literatures are discussed.

Rethinking the Lawyer-Client Interview: Taking a Relational Approach

The client interview is an integral part of a lawyer’s work. Despite this, there is little research focused on the client interview and how it might influence the economy of the legal strategies and processes that follow. This study examined students’ perceptions of perspective-taking, trust, self-disclosure and understanding in a client interview where the students took the roles of either a lawyer or client in a dispute resolution context. The results revealed that the client’s perception of their lawyer’s perspective-taking increased their trust in the lawyer, which increased their self-disclosure, which subsequently helped the clients to gain a better understanding of their situation. The results illustrate the importance of the key relational aspects during consultation and accords with similar findings in the procedural justice and mentalising literature. The findings could have powerful implications for rethinking the purpose and aims of the lawyer-client interview and helping lawyers to reshape the outcomes.

Award writing under the PWA section 10 procedure

This paper, the first in a short series, deals with the structure of awards within the wider context of dispute resolution. This paper sets out the basic requirements for each part of an award.

Dispute Resolution Outside of Courts: Procedural Justice and Decision Acceptance Among Users of Ombuds Services in the UK

Attitudes toward legal authorities based on theories of procedural justice have been explored extensively in the criminal and civil justice systems. This has provided considerable empirical evidence concerning the importance of trust and legitimacy in generating cooperation, compliance, and decision acceptance. However, not enough attention has been paid to attitudes towards institutions of informal dispute resolution. This paper asks whether the theory of procedural justice applies to the alternative dispute resolution context, focusing on ombuds services. What are the predictors of perceptions of procedural justice during the process of dealing with an ombuds, and what factors shape outcome acceptance? These questions are analyzed using a sample of recent ombuds users. The results indicate that outcome favorability is highly correlated with perceived procedural justice, and both predict decision acceptance.

Achieving Quality Outcomes in Community Titles Disputes: A Therapeutic Jurisprudence Approach

Community title schemes are an increasingly popular form of housing in Queensland and throughout Australia in general. Community title housing (typically apartment buildings and townhouses) involve medium to high-density living, which in turn tend to produce a higher incidence of neighbourhood disputes than lower density living options. However, a second reason for the prevalence of the disputes is the varied nature of interests in a community title scheme. Within the single scheme, there may be owner occupiers (either residential or commercial or both), tenants (again, residential, commercial or both), members of the body corporate committee, and property managers. Each of these types of stakeholders has different interests and perceptions of how a scheme ought to operate, with the potential for serious disputes to result.Recognising the potentially harmful effects of community title disputes and the need for accessible dispute resolution options, the Office of the Commissioner for Body Corporate and Community Management (OBCCM) was established to provide specialist dispute resolution procedures. The OBCCM offers conciliation and adjudication, with avenues of appeal available to the newly-established Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal. The OBCCM’s self-identified objective in relation to this service is to offer “a quality dispute resolution service which is timely and responsive.” In practice, the dispute resolution services are a hybrid of inquisitorial and adversarial approaches, focussing on the legal aspects of the dispute. This paper combines academic and practitioner perspectives to explore the possibility of a therapeutic approach to body corporate and community title disputes. The paper firstly provides an overview of the dispute resolution context of community title disputes and the role of the OBCCM. It then considers the effect of current OBCCM practices on participant wellbeing, and questions whether the introduction of a therapeutic approach might not only improve outcomes in discrete cases, but in fact have the potential to enhance or restore community living within troubled schemes. Finally, the paper comments on the type of legal and dispute system changes that might be required to facilitate such an approach.

Taking Divorce out of the Context of Dispute Resolution

Taking Divorce out of the Context of Dispute Resolution

A Remarkable Example of Promotion of Arbitration and ADR: The Resolution of Disputes in the Belgian Newly Liberalized Energy Sector

THE LIBERALIZATION of investment in the energy sector at international level1 and the implementation of the European directives on electricity2 and gas3 are likely to give rise to disputes between new actors in matters that, until recently, were totally regulated. Most of these disputes will be ruled by arbitration or ADR. The first part of this article is devoted to the European context of dispute resolution in the electricity and gas markets. The second part provides an insight in the way Belgium implemented4 the Electricity and Gas Directives by creating new authorities for resolving disputes.5 This analysis will conclude that these specific modes of dispute resolution are particularly well adapted to technical energy matters. In the wake of the end of the Cold War, concerns and discussions about the need to realign economic arrangements, in particular the need to reorganize the economic institutions of the former Eastern European countries and their incorporation into Western economic processes, were important preoccupations of political and economic leaders.6 Since 1991, the European Charter on Energy aimed to start a process of economic growth between Western and Eastern European countries by installing measures for the liberalization of investment and exchange in the energy sector. One of the more comprehensive agreements signed between Western and Eastern Europe is the European Energy Charter Treaty signed at Lisbon, Portugal in December 1994 in the spirit of the European Charter on Energy.7 The primary objective of the Treaty is to create space for Western investment in the important, but apparently less exploited, energy resources of the former Eastern European countries.8 The Treaty foresees, in its section VI on the Regulation of Disputes, specific provisions related to disputes that might occur between a private investor and a contracting party or between contracting …

Trade and... Problems, Cost-Benefit Analysis and Subsidiarity

This article analyses the conflict between trade values and other values ('trade and ... problems'), such as environmental protection, labour rights or free competition, as It Is addressed by the principal legal devices available to address such conflicts ('trade-off devices') In the dispute resolution context In the European Union, the GATT/World Trade Organization system and In the United States federal system. These trade-off devices Include anti-discrimination rules, simple means-ends rationality tests, least trade restrictive alternative tests, proportionality tests, balancing tests and cost-benefit analysis. A separate cost-benefit analysis methodology Is developed to choose among these devices In particular circumstances. From the simple standpoint of maximization of the sum of benefits of trade and of regulation, cost-benefit analysis would, tautologically, be selected. However, full cost-benefit analysis is nowhere In use as a trade-off device. This paper begins to explain this apparent paradox by suggesting reasons, including administrative, distributive, moral and theoretical concerns, why this approach Is not applied. It then explores these reasons In order to evaluate retreats from full cost-benefit analysis to the trade-off devices actually in use. Finally, the author seeks to comprehend these trade-off devices as determinants of the allocation of regulatory jurisdiction between central and component governments: of

Trade and...Problems, Cost-Benefit Analysis and Subsidiarity

This article seeks to comprehend the conflict between trade values and other values (trade and...problems), such as environmental protection, labor rights or free competition, through comparative institutional analysis using cost-benefit analysis: comparative institutional cost-benefit analysis. The goal of this article is to illuminate the institutional choices embedded in this sometimes heated conflict. This article utilizes this comparative institutional cost-benefit analysis methodology to analyze the principal legal devices available to address conflicts between trade values and other values (tradeoff devices) in the dispute resolution context in the European Union, the GATT/World Trade Organization system and in the United States federal system. These tradeoff devices include anti-discrimination rules, simple means-ends rationality tests, least trade-restrictive alternative tests, proportionality tests, balancing tests and (substantive) cost-benefit analysis. In a zero-transaction cost world, comparative substantive cost-benefit analysis would be the first-best tradeoff device: comparative institutional cost-benefit analysis would select comparative substantive cost-benefit analysis. However, comparative cost-benefit analysis is nowhere in use as a tradeoff device. This paper begins to explain this apparent paradox by suggesting reasons, including theoretical, administrative, distributive and ethical concerns, why this first-best approach is not used in the real world. These reasons are explored in order to evaluate retreats from comparative cost-benefit analysis to the tradeoff devices actually in use. Finally, this article shows that these tradeoff devices implicitly serve as determinants of the allocation of regulatory jurisdiction between the central and component governments: of subsidiarity.

A Feminist Approach to the Empowerment of Women Mediators

The focus of this paper is on power and empowerment as experienced by women mediators. The approach to the topic is seated in phenomenology and feminist scholarship. The authors argue for the appropriateness of these perspectives in examining the ways in which women mediators come to understand their experiences and exercise their roles. The three phases of phenomenological research (i.e. description, reduction, interpretation) are employed in analyzing individual interviews and a focus group interview. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for women and for the dispute resolution context of mediation.

<sc>Schools of Psychoanalytic Thought</sc>. By Ruth L. Munroe. New York: The Dryden Press, 1955. 670 pp. $7.50

Living in society requires a co-ordination of interests, and one of the co-ordination rules is a rule of justice. Subjective justice judgements are related to a degree to which an individual accepts a resolution of a situation. Justice judgements are very important in cases of argument and dispute resolution. Subjective justice judgement is a compromise between self-interest situation resolution and necessity to follow socially acceptable norms and rules of justice. The author analyses factors influencing subjective justice judgements in a dispute resolution context. Some problems of practical application of justice theories are also outlined.