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This research seeks to identify online participants’ disposition and skills. A prototype dashboard and annotation scheme were developed to support facilitators and several computational predictors were identified that show statistically significant correlations with dialogue skills as observed by human annotators.

Technology is revolutionizing the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) field. Despite the long-held assumptions that increasing understanding, building empathy, and crafting resolution are only possible in-person, effective ways have emerged for assisting the resolution of the exploding number of disputes that have burgeoned online. Technology has become the “fourth party” through the growing field of online dispute resolution (ODR), which includes use of technology and computer-mediated-communication (CMC) in negotiation, mediation, arbitration and other dispute resolution processes. ODR is infiltrating family law and even courts are starting to employ ODR in family cases. Expedited divorces and tracking parenting plans with little court involvement garner appeal amidst growing expectation that everything should be available with a few “clicks” or “swipes” on our technological devices. These expectations and opportunities place new responsibilities on the field and its practitioners. How can we best integrate technology into ADR—both online and off? How can we prevent the rush to digitization from ignoring due process and transparency in the name of efficiency? Accordingly, this Article will discuss the value of ODR for family disputes and highlight key concepts and ODR standards to consider for ethical design and employment of technology in family dispute resolution. This is the submitted version of the article. The published version may be found at 59 Family Court Review 250 (April 2021) Wiley Online Library

The disruptive force of technology has led to innovative dispute resolution practices that increase access to justice and also raise new ethical considerations. In response, there have been assertions about the importance of applying to online dispute resolution (ODR) the shared values already enshrined within alternative dispute resolution (ADR) as well as calls to more carefully assess ways they may be insufficient or need refining to adequately address the new ethical challenges emerging in ODR. As ODR is increasingly incorporated into legislation, regulation and a wide variety of sectors in society, it is timely to explore the importance of ethical principles specifically for ODR. In the hope of contributing to these efforts, this article examines the benefits and challenges of articulating a set of ethical principles to guide the development and implementation of ODR systems, technology and processes.

This Note documents the motivations, process and challenges in developing the 10 Gender Principles for Dealing with the Legacy of the Past in Northern Ireland. The Principles are the outcome of a targeted intervention by a group of women from civil society and academia in Ireland and the UK to challenge the exclusions of ongoing negotiations to agree on a process to deal with the past. The Principles were shaped by a small-scale consultation with women bereaved by the conflict. The Note discusses some of the implications of the initiative for efforts elsewhere to craft practical feminist interventions into transitional justice processes, including the challenges inherent to such work.

Cet article porte sur un projet de commemoration a Belfast-ouest qui questionne les recits dominants par lesquels la violence d’Etat se soustrait aux interrogations, et qui exige que ces actes soient reconnus et repares. Le circuit de memoire propose un contre-recit, en presentant des souvenirs qui contestent les constructions hegemoniques et expriment la necessite de justice. La temporalite du circuit, ainsi que son insistance a donner a voir le conflit au lieu de lisser le passe, temoignent de son caractere novateur et necessaire dans une societe en transition.

This article explores a West Belfast commemoration project that challenges dominant narratives shielding State-sponsored violence from interrogation and demands that these acts be recognized and redressed. The remembrance trail offers a counternarrative by presenting memory that contests hegemonic constructs and articulates the need for justice. Both the trail’s temporality and its insistence on making conflict visible rather than homogenizing the past demonstrates its innovation and necessity in a society in transition.

The growing scholarship on inequality that occurs in mediation raises questions that challenge the underlying assumptions of the field. Reliance on mediator neutrality and the self-determination of parties masks the realities of how mediation can and does produce and reproduce substantive and procedural inequality. Critical interrogation of both the hegemonic paradigm and its practices permits insight into how this operates and points to the importance of learning from other paradigms and developing new strategies for addressing this dilemma.

We investigate supporting higher quality deliberations in online contexts by supporting what we call "social deliberative skills," including perspective-taking, meta-dialog, and reflecting on one's biases. We report on an experiment with college students engaged in online dialogues about controversial topics, using discussion forum software with "reflective tools" designed to support social deliberative skills. We find that these have a significant effect as measured by rubrics designed to asses dialogue quaility and social deliberative behaviors.

We describe a study in which we tested features of online dialogue software meant to scaffold "social deliberative skills." In addition to hand coding of the dialogue text we are exploring the use of automated text analysis tools (LIWC and Coh-Metrix) to identify relevant features, and to be used in a Facilitator Dashboard tool in development.

This demonstration shows a prototype tool that projects an impression of how execution of a formally defined process will facilitate dispute resolution. Tool flexibility supports projecting the look and feel of a range of different processes, facilitating user evaluation of alternatives.