3 Emerging crisis
The previous chapter examined ways of conceptualising technology and concluded
with the suggestion that the social meaning creation embedded in the use of
information and communication technology (ICT) could be considered as a new
emergent social system. This chapter draws a picture of the crisis the use of ICT
has provoked within the legal system by enabling increasing privatisation of
enforcement. First, different concrete examples of dispute resolution technology
are discussed to provide an overview of existing applications. Second, the need to
categorise these applications is addressed by introducing a taxonomy for dispute
resolution technology. After this, the shortcomings of the analogy of technology as
the fourth party of dispute resolution procedure are examined before moving on to
the second part of the chapter which explains the changes in enforcement.
Privatisation of coercion is then placed in the context of private regimes and then
discussed in relation to dispute resolution before continuing with examples of
private enforcement including direct enforcement of e-commerce sites, ICANN’s
UDRP procedure for domain name disputes, chargebacks, user reviews, trustmarks, and smart contracts. It is argued that enforcement is crucial for all dispute
resolution and this possibility of coaxing compliance without reference to the
state’s monopoly on violence is the most fundamental difference between old and
new private regimes of dispute resolution.
3.1 Technology in dispute resolution
3.1.1 Examples of dispute resolution technology
Dispute resolution technology should be understood as an inclusive definition of
ICT applications that facilitate different aspects of conflict management. Such
applications may ease access to legal help on a general level through legislation and
case law portals, diagnostic tools and chatbots, or expedite resolution of a dispute
through case management systems, communication tools and user portals, decision
support tools, videoconferencing, to name but a few. In addition to such functions, legal design is increasingly becoming an aspect of the development of
different user-friendly applications that place the experience of law’s end-users
ahead of that of the legal profession,
1 a trend that is connected with the often
The previous chapter examined ways of conceptualising technology and concluded
with the suggestion that the social meaning creation embedded in the use of
information and communication technology (ICT) could be considered as a new
emergent social system. This chapter draws a picture of the crisis the use of ICT
has provoked within the legal system by enabling increasing privatisation of
enforcement. First, different concrete examples of dispute resolution technology
are discussed to provide an overview of existing applications. Second, the need to
categorise these applications is addressed by introducing a taxonomy for dispute
resolution technology. After this, the shortcomings of the analogy of technology as
the fourth party of dispute resolution procedure are examined before moving on to
the second part of the chapter which explains the changes in enforcement.
Privatisation of coercion is then placed in the context of private regimes and then
discussed in relation to dispute resolution before continuing with examples of
private enforcement including direct enforcement of e-commerce sites, ICANN’s
UDRP procedure for domain name disputes, chargebacks, user reviews, trustmarks, and smart contracts. It is argued that enforcement is crucial for all dispute
resolution and this possibility of coaxing compliance without reference to the
state’s monopoly on violence is the most fundamental difference between old and
new private regimes of dispute resolution.
3.1 Technology in dispute resolution
3.1.1 Examples of dispute resolution technology
Dispute resolution technology should be understood as an inclusive definition of
ICT applications that facilitate different aspects of conflict management. Such
applications may ease access to legal help on a general level through legislation and
case law portals, diagnostic tools and chatbots, or expedite resolution of a dispute
through case management systems, communication tools and user portals, decision
support tools, videoconferencing, to name but a few. In addition to such functions, legal design is increasingly becoming an aspect of the development of
different user-friendly applications that place the experience of law’s end-users
ahead of that of the legal profession,
1 a trend that is connected with the often