Mediation is a process wherein a third party, or mediator, attempts to assist two conflicting parties in dealing with their dispute. Research has identified party trust in the mediator as a key element required for mediator effectiveness. In online video-based mediation, the addition of technology to the mix poses both challenges and opportunities to the capacity of the mediator to build trust with the parties through non-verbal communication. While authors researching the field of online dispute resolution have often focused on trust, their work has typically targeted text-based processes. As online dispute resolution embraces video-based processes, non-verbal communication becomes more salient. Non-verbal communication research has identified examples of specific actions that can contribute to trust. This article combines that research with current scholarship on trust in mediation and on non-verbal communication in mediation to map out the landscape mediators face while seeking to build trust through non-verbal communication in online video-based mediation. Suggestions for future research and implications for practice are noted, holding relevance to researchers and practitioners in any field in which trust, non-verbal communication and technology converge.

The interests of state sovereignty are preserved in conflict management through adoption of a state monopoly for dispute resolution as the descriptive and constitutive concept of the resolution system. State monopoly refers to the state’s exclusive right to decide on the resolution of legal conflicts on its own soil, in other words, in the state’s territorial jurisdiction. This also forms the basis of international procedural law. This conceptual fiction is derived from the social contract theories of Hobbes and Locke, and it preserves the state’s agenda. However, such a monopoly is disintegrating in the Internet era because it fails to provide an effective resolution method for Internet disputes in cross-border cases, and, consequently, online dispute resolution has gained ground in the dispute resolution market. It raises the question of whether we should discard the state monopoly as the focal concept of dispute resolution and whether we should open a wider discussion on possible justificatory constructions of dispute resolution, i.e. sovereignty, contract and quality standards, as a whole, re-evaluating the underlying structure of procedural law.

This article explores the value of focusing on the social impact of technology in business and in furthering the integration of online dispute resolution into the collaborative economy. The keynote presentation at ODR2014 by technology industry leader and entrepreneur Mitch Kapor serves as the cornerstone of this discussion. Speaking to an audience from the dispute resolution, legal, technological and financial communities, Kapor discusses the potential of businesses to increase their positive social impact, particularly with regard to access to equality, mutual gains and dispute prevention within the sharing economy. The examples from innovative tech companies illustrate the important role that information management, systems design and impact-savvy business practices play in this endeavour. Building on the keynote, the article suggests how the exploration of questions of social impact and inclusion and the application of related principles can lead to a deeper integration of ODR systems into the collaborative economy and more effective ODR dispute systems design.