Lord Justice Briggs has been intimately involved in the development of technology for improving access to justice in the UK. He was the author of a report that energized the move toward online dispute resolution in the courts. These remarks are a retrospective look at his work, now that he is a member of the UK Supreme Court, and no longer involved day-to-day in ODR development.

Recent scholarship and innovative applications of technology to dispute resolution highlight the promise of increasing access to justice via online dispute resolution (ODR) practices. Yet, technology can also magnify the risk of procedural and substantive injustice when artificial intelligence amplifies power imbalances, compounds inaccuracies and biases and reduces transparency in decision making. These risks raise important ethical questions for ODR systems design. Under what conditions should algorithms decide outcomes? Are software developers serving as gatekeepers to access to justice? Given competing interests among stakeholders, whose priorities should impact the incorporation of technology into courts and other methods of dispute resolution? Multidisciplinary collaboration and stakeholder engagement can contribute to the creation of ethical principles for ODR systems design and transparent monitoring and accountability mechanisms. Attention to their development is needed as technology becomes more heavily integrated into our legal system and forms of alternative dispute resolution.

Information technology has dramatically changed the way consumers and businesses transact around the world. Many consumer goods (such as videos, music and software) are purchased online through the Internet instead of through physical stores. Businesses have similarly migrated many of their commercial transactions online, including proposals, due diligence, negotiation and signing. However, most dispute resolution processes have not yet made a similar move; they occur face-to-face, even when the dispute arose online. This has led to a new type of dispute resolution, called ODR (or Online Dispute Resolution). ODR is the use of technology to resolve disputes, and it is being promoted in many countries around the world as a model for civil justice in an online age. North America and the European Union (EU) have aggressively promoted ODR, and there are many ODR projects currently underway. As one of the leading online economies in the world, Japan is facing many of the same challenges as the rest of the world in providing fast and fair resolutions to online consumers. But to date, ODR has not gotten much traction in Japan. Recently, the Japanese Consumer Network published a report about ODR for cross-border e-commerce transactions and encouraged the government to establish a working group for implementation of ODR. However, discussion by multiple stakeholders towards practical implementation of ODR has not yet started in earnest. This article aims to focus the discussion about how to implement ODR in Japan, providing information about the latest developments in global ODR frameworks and envisioning the challenges ODR faces in the Japanese market.

This article contains the Introduction of a book with the same title recently published by Cambridge University Press, which is reproduced here with its permission. The book offers an updated analysis of the various consumer dispute resolution processes, its laws and best practices, which are collectively referred as the Law of Consumer Redress. The book argues that many consumer redress systems, and in particular publicly certified Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) entities, are more than a mere dispute resolution mechanism as they provide a public service for consumers that complements, and often replaces, the role of the courts. In examining the current redress models (i.e., public enforcement, private enforcement and other market options), the book calls for greater integration amongst these various redress options. It also advocates, inter alia, for processes that encourage parties to participate in ADR processes, settle meritorious claims and ensure extrajudicial enforcement of final outcomes. Lastly, the book calls for a more efficient rationalization of certified ADR entities, which should be better coordinated and accessible through technological means.

The European single market is a symbol of European integration. Certainly, the European internal market brings great opportunities to its citizens and professionals, especially when the European legislators enact new provisions in order to boost the internal market.
In May 2013, the European legislator enacted two legislative measures, whose aim was to encourage the employment of out-of-court mechanisms in order to solve consumer disputes: the European Regulation establishing the Online Dispute Resolution interactive website and the Directive on Alternative Dispute Mechanisms. Taking its cue from the first report issued by the European Commission on the Online Dispute Resolution, this article focuses on the enforcement of the European Regulation in Italy and concludes that, due to legal incongruence, no enforcement means have been dictated in order to sanction infringements to the European Regulation carried out by Italian professionals.