according to the arbitration clause. After a relatively quick procedure, the arbitral
tribunal decides in favour of Jacqueline and obligates Bob to pay her the
compensation of €30,000. When Bob refuses to pay, Jacqueline contacts the
district court in Berlin where Bob’s company is still located. She asks the court to
enforce the arbitral award in accordance with the New York Convention on the
Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards. The German court
recognises the award in a summary process and after this Jacqueline has the award
enforced through the public enforcement authorities.
In this example, the dispute resolution is provided by private arbitration
tribunal and the enforcement by the public system. This follows from the
rationale of the New York Convention that entrusts the enforcement of private
dispute resolution to the Contracting States in accordance with the rules set out
in the Convention instrument. By choosing arbitration over the public courts,
Jacqueline saves time, although the costs of arbitration might exceed the legal
costs in courts. The Convention provides a well-functioning interface to the
public enforcement mechanism that limits the time and expense of the recognition procedure.
21 Also, the due process criteria of the arbitration procedure are
evaluated by the public court before access to public enforcement is granted,
meaning that the final say about the use of force still resides within the public
sphere. This means that the parties may place their trust simultaneously in the
expertise of the arbitration tribunal and the quality of the recognition procedure
and debt recovery of public authorities. Nonetheless, full-scale arbitration is often
too expensive to provide a solution for low-intensity disputes often characterised
by their low value.
22
C. Coaxing compliance online without enforcement
This example describes the use of alternative mechanisms such as reputational
systems that are often used in an online setting to remedy the lack of actual
dispute resolution and enforcement mechanisms.
Montrealer Matthieu browses around an e-commerce site in the hopes of
finding a modular synthesiser for the right price. He finds Bob’s company
Sound Waves and is about to place an order before noticing that the products
are shipped from Germany. He decides to go through user reviews about other
buyers’ experiences with Bob. Seeing that Bob has several reviews complaining
about damage to the products during delivery, Matthieu decides to buy the
synthesiser from another seller.
As trustworthy redress mechanisms might not be available, consumers’ trust in
the reliability of e-commerce is upheld by other means of directing behaviour.
Here, the e-commerce site adopts the perspective of conflict prevention as it
rewards appropriate behaviour by publishing positive reviews and sanctions
unwished behaviour by negative reviews and other possible means, e.g. banning
unwanted users from the site.
23
Although this conflict prevention does not address the needs of an already
escalated dispute, such functionalities encourage desired behaviour in the future.
10 Theoretical implications of dispute resolution technology
tribunal decides in favour of Jacqueline and obligates Bob to pay her the
compensation of €30,000. When Bob refuses to pay, Jacqueline contacts the
district court in Berlin where Bob’s company is still located. She asks the court to
enforce the arbitral award in accordance with the New York Convention on the
Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards. The German court
recognises the award in a summary process and after this Jacqueline has the award
enforced through the public enforcement authorities.
In this example, the dispute resolution is provided by private arbitration
tribunal and the enforcement by the public system. This follows from the
rationale of the New York Convention that entrusts the enforcement of private
dispute resolution to the Contracting States in accordance with the rules set out
in the Convention instrument. By choosing arbitration over the public courts,
Jacqueline saves time, although the costs of arbitration might exceed the legal
costs in courts. The Convention provides a well-functioning interface to the
public enforcement mechanism that limits the time and expense of the recognition procedure.
21 Also, the due process criteria of the arbitration procedure are
evaluated by the public court before access to public enforcement is granted,
meaning that the final say about the use of force still resides within the public
sphere. This means that the parties may place their trust simultaneously in the
expertise of the arbitration tribunal and the quality of the recognition procedure
and debt recovery of public authorities. Nonetheless, full-scale arbitration is often
too expensive to provide a solution for low-intensity disputes often characterised
by their low value.
22
C. Coaxing compliance online without enforcement
This example describes the use of alternative mechanisms such as reputational
systems that are often used in an online setting to remedy the lack of actual
dispute resolution and enforcement mechanisms.
Montrealer Matthieu browses around an e-commerce site in the hopes of
finding a modular synthesiser for the right price. He finds Bob’s company
Sound Waves and is about to place an order before noticing that the products
are shipped from Germany. He decides to go through user reviews about other
buyers’ experiences with Bob. Seeing that Bob has several reviews complaining
about damage to the products during delivery, Matthieu decides to buy the
synthesiser from another seller.
As trustworthy redress mechanisms might not be available, consumers’ trust in
the reliability of e-commerce is upheld by other means of directing behaviour.
Here, the e-commerce site adopts the perspective of conflict prevention as it
rewards appropriate behaviour by publishing positive reviews and sanctions
unwished behaviour by negative reviews and other possible means, e.g. banning
unwanted users from the site.
23
Although this conflict prevention does not address the needs of an already
escalated dispute, such functionalities encourage desired behaviour in the future.
10 Theoretical implications of dispute resolution technology