National Center for Technology and Dispute Resolution » crule

The M-Jirga: ODR for Afghanistan

crule — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:08:23 +0000

I’d love to get Cyberweek attendees to check out a recent deck we put together for the National Defense University in the US. There’s some exciting planning around helping to resolve civil disputes in Afghanistan, and we proposed the creation of a cell-phone-only based resolution process based on traditional justice processes. This deck lays out how the mechanism would work. I’m the first to admit that I have very little first-hand knowledge of the reality of conditions on the ground in Afghanistan, so I think this proposal is in dire need of reality testing from Afghans, or individuals who have spent a significant amount of time in Afghanistan. But I do think there are some interesting possibilities. This could be a model for introducing ODR in many developing-world contexts, and for improving access to justice. Very curious to hear everyone’s thoughts.

http://peacetech.org/?page_id=3

Ideas around a new odr.info

crule — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 01:57:29 +0000

Hi Cyberweek attendees –

I just wanted to get some input on a new design for odr.info. I’ve got a draft of a new site running up here: http://respectpledge.org/ – that’s a placeholder design (can be completely changed) but the functionality is all working.

It uses Drupal, an open source CMS that I’ve had some success with. I was thinking a joint blog platform, along the lines of http://acrepp.org/ (which I also put together using Drupal) would make sense – we could all contribute posts there and keep it lively.

I see Alan is using WordPress to great effect for Cyberweek – we could go that route as well.

Please leave some comments with your thoughts. I think now is the time for us to leverage some of these great CMSes to take odr.info to the next level.

Challenging Conventional Notions of ADR

crule — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:18:54 +0000

Wallace Warfield (legendary ADR figure and professor at George Mason’s ICAR) delivered a quite provocative keynote at the ACR conference in Atlanta. View it in its entirety here. Some of his points:

“With a few exceptions, ADR is marginalized in issues of social conflict. We are relegated to tinkering around the edges. ‘When real conflict hits the ground, conflict resolution is nowhere to be seen.’”
”We tend to believe that the irrationalities all belong to the parties, not to us. We in fact bring those to the table and we need to be honest about that.”
”Part of this has come for a struggle for professionalization, which has become in part the ‘legalization of mediation.’ We used to be the ‘alternative’ to litigiousness, but I’m not so sure any more.”
”How do you evaluate and credential a moving target?”
”We need to embrace the change that is occurring in additional third party practice… We need to create new images of ourselves; a different kind of intervention requires a new type of identity.”

Frank Dukes and John Stephens have started a discussion about some of the points made on their Ning – I encourage you to check it out and participate:

http://highergroundswell.ning.com/forum/topics/challenging-conventional

New UK Internet Payment Service Launched

crule — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:53:42 +0000

http://www.journalism.co.uk/66/articles/536202.php

Posted: 26/10/09

“TrustedFriend.com can be used for payment of any transaction between individuals or companies, in person or over the internet.

Delivering services before they have been paid for is risky for sellers and service-providers, and paying for goods before they arrive is risky for buyers. Bridging this gap for the first time, TrustedFriend.com is a fully-secure FSA-registered third-party service designed to safeguard both parties during their transaction and to help them resolve any disputes easily and cheaply.

TrustedFriend.com works as an automated website for buyers and sellers of goods and services to agree their transaction terms, securely make and receive guaranteed payment when and only when transaction terms are fulfilled, and quickly resolve disputes. The buyer’s money is held in a client bank account administered by TrustedFriend.com as a neutral third-party/escrow holder, with interest accruing to the buyer or seller.

With TrustedFriend.com, sellers are guaranteed full payment as soon as they provide the agreed goods or services without the risk of non-payment or the hassle of chasing debts, and buyers are guaranteed to receive what they paid for or get their money back.

The operator of TrustedFriend.com is one of the first money-remitters to be registered with the Financial Services Authority as a ‘Payment Institution’ under the new Payment Services Regulations 2009, which come into force EU-wide on 1st November 2009, and give statutory protection to client money held by TrustedFriend.com. Existing payment service providers, such as Western Union and Paypal, have a year to comply with these new registration requirements but, as a new Payment Institution, TrustedFriend.com is compliant from day one.

TrustedFriend.com founder Andrew Kaye says: “This legislation means that the money we hold on behalf of clients, while they are waiting for goods and services to be delivered as promised, is now tightly safeguarded by law. Our customers also choose their own referee to use in case of a dispute, rather than relying on the payment service to decide who is at fault in a dispute. This payment system is designed as a virtually-local trusted friend for the global village, and will change the way people transact in the UK.”

With a per-transaction cost of just £2.99 for buyers and sellers, TrustedFriend.com is a cost-effective solution for consumers and small businesses transacting with people they don’t know.”

Interesting approach to dispute resolution…