or turn to a third party. By criminalising vigilantism, the power over the conflict
is transferred from the parties to the neutral third, which can be private or public
providers of resolution services. Still, the conflict does not belong to the third
party either, as her authority depends on the initiation of the procedure, which
can be done solely by one or more of the parties. Legal decisions have effects on a
wider level than just in the parties’ lives, although these are often the prominent
effects.
3 Decisions may form a body of case law or become binding precedents
that provide further grounded legal expectations to others. Private disputes
benefit the broader public. Does this mean that conflicts belong to us all? Or to
the state as the representative of the public?
It becomes evident that there are several claims to the ownership of conflicts
and, more importantly, conflicts and their resolution are important. However,
like children in Gibran’s poem, conflicts have a tendency to elude ownership.
Several positions can be argued here. The parties involved care a great deal about
the resolution of their conflict, but the state, and even the markets, also want to
have a say. We can argue in favour of increasing party autonomy so that disputing
parties have the sole right to decide how their conflicts are resolved, in private or
publicly, according to the law or according to other criteria, with the use of force
or with an amicable solution. Still, such a solution has been seen to lead to
vigilantism and blood revenge, which then threaten societal stability.
In order to preserve peace and order in social relations, we could make the
claim that conflicts disengage themselves from the parties. They become something separate from their origin, they come about through the parties but not
from the parties. Conflicts become a social practice. They are something that
needs to be solved by an outsider so that we can separate power and law from
each other. Conflicts would then become a public matter with a pronounced
social relevance. They would carry a social function and belong to society as a
whole, which would highlight their importance in creating legal precedents and
in providing continuity for future expectations and interaction. The state has a
significant role in maintaining social order and stability, so we could claim that
both the state and the entire society have a say in conflicts.
However, in lieu of the social development and functional differentiation of
society, dispute resolution has also become a market. Dispute resolution services
are more and more often provided by private entities which adopt the role of the
neutral third. As the freedom to engage in commercial activity is a fundamental
right provided for in several human rights Conventions,
4 the claim that conflicts
belong simply to the state is difficult to maintain in an absolute manner. So the
addressees of conflicts include the parties, the neutral third, the operators of the
economic markets, as well as the state and the wider public.
So, who has, or should have, a say in how conflicts are resolved? And most
importantly, whose say carries the most weight? The answer to the question of
whose word we trust has implications for justification. Different perspectives
correspond with different interests and values and choosing a perspective affects
the role we grant to the parties and to the state to define what dispute resolution
should be.
110 Three quests for justification
is transferred from the parties to the neutral third, which can be private or public
providers of resolution services. Still, the conflict does not belong to the third
party either, as her authority depends on the initiation of the procedure, which
can be done solely by one or more of the parties. Legal decisions have effects on a
wider level than just in the parties’ lives, although these are often the prominent
effects.
3 Decisions may form a body of case law or become binding precedents
that provide further grounded legal expectations to others. Private disputes
benefit the broader public. Does this mean that conflicts belong to us all? Or to
the state as the representative of the public?
It becomes evident that there are several claims to the ownership of conflicts
and, more importantly, conflicts and their resolution are important. However,
like children in Gibran’s poem, conflicts have a tendency to elude ownership.
Several positions can be argued here. The parties involved care a great deal about
the resolution of their conflict, but the state, and even the markets, also want to
have a say. We can argue in favour of increasing party autonomy so that disputing
parties have the sole right to decide how their conflicts are resolved, in private or
publicly, according to the law or according to other criteria, with the use of force
or with an amicable solution. Still, such a solution has been seen to lead to
vigilantism and blood revenge, which then threaten societal stability.
In order to preserve peace and order in social relations, we could make the
claim that conflicts disengage themselves from the parties. They become something separate from their origin, they come about through the parties but not
from the parties. Conflicts become a social practice. They are something that
needs to be solved by an outsider so that we can separate power and law from
each other. Conflicts would then become a public matter with a pronounced
social relevance. They would carry a social function and belong to society as a
whole, which would highlight their importance in creating legal precedents and
in providing continuity for future expectations and interaction. The state has a
significant role in maintaining social order and stability, so we could claim that
both the state and the entire society have a say in conflicts.
However, in lieu of the social development and functional differentiation of
society, dispute resolution has also become a market. Dispute resolution services
are more and more often provided by private entities which adopt the role of the
neutral third. As the freedom to engage in commercial activity is a fundamental
right provided for in several human rights Conventions,
4 the claim that conflicts
belong simply to the state is difficult to maintain in an absolute manner. So the
addressees of conflicts include the parties, the neutral third, the operators of the
economic markets, as well as the state and the wider public.
So, who has, or should have, a say in how conflicts are resolved? And most
importantly, whose say carries the most weight? The answer to the question of
whose word we trust has implications for justification. Different perspectives
correspond with different interests and values and choosing a perspective affects
the role we grant to the parties and to the state to define what dispute resolution
should be.
110 Three quests for justification