In 2019, the world witnessed an exceptional wave of climate protests. In this case study, we scrutinise who participated in the protests staged in Belgium. We ask: did the exceptional mobilising context of the 2019 protest wave also bring exceptional protesters to the streets? Were thanks to the unique momentum standard barriers to protest participation overcome? We answer these questions by comparing three surveys of participants in the 2019 protest wave with three surveys of relevant reference publics. Our findings show that while the Belgian 2019 protest was in many ways exceptional, its participants were less so. Although participants – especially in the early phase of the protest wave – were less protest experienced, younger and unaffiliated to organisations, our findings simultaneously confirm the persistence of a great many well-known socio-demographic and political inequalities. Our conclusion centres on the implications of these findings.

The French Supreme Court has held that an employer was not guilty of direct discrimination on the ground of religious beliefs by imposing on an employee of Hindu faith a disciplinary transfer to a new working site, when such transfer was justified by an essential and determining professional requirement.

The French Supreme Court has held that exceeding the maximum weekly working time causes automatic harm to the employee which should be repaired.

The definition of online dispute resolution (ODR) has become increasingly contested, particularly fueled by the recent explosion in the use of technology during the pandemic by courts and alternative dispute resolution practitioners. The recent expansion of stakeholders has contributed productively to the on-going discussion of the parameters of ODR that have implications for ethical practice. Does the use of video conferencing constitute ODR? What new procedural and substantive justice concerns arise with the use of technology in dispute handling and how should they be addressed? Since technology not only alters the role of third parties and disputants but also serves as a fourth party, what are the ethical implications for example, of employing artificial intelligence? How can explorations of the boundaries of ODR foster a re-imaging of 21st Century justice systems?
This article explores the importance of the parameters of ODR for the ethical practice of dispute resolution and introduces a paper, Framing the Parameters of Online Dispute Resolution (National Center for Technology and Dispute Resolution, 2022) that offers a descriptive ODR Framework; one that encompasses the broad range of views on the boundaries of ODR along an axis of increasing reliance on technology through various functions and stages of dispute handling. The article discusses the implications of this ODR Framework for enhancing ethical guidance and regulation for whatever definition of ODR is utilized.

India’s vast case pendency and inefficiency of formal mechanisms greatly hinder the resolution of disputes. Aimed at moving India beyond these traditional limitations, the online dispute resolution (ODR) movement in India developed and gained tremendous momentum with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Stakeholders otherwise resistant to change, both in government and in industry, were compelled to embrace technology and resort to an online mode of resolving disputes. This article traces the steady and promising growth of ODR in India and examines the contributions of innovators, entrepreneurs and enterprises who recognized the need for an alternative model of dispute resolution and participated in championing the expansion of ODR in the country. The article identifies insights from the Indian experience that could be portable to other missions for law and justice innovation in the world.

While court administrations/justice departments were not among the early adopters of online dispute resolution (ODR) they can clearly, as gatekeepers to the majority of civil disputes, have an enormous influence on ODR and, in particular, the speed at which ODR is adopted as a widely accepted practice in dispute resolution.
Systems being rolled out by or for courts have been piecemeal as individual administrations pursue research into their own future. Early systems tend to be in either case management and/or e-filing but little in the way of e-negotiation or aids to resolution. What is shared is the existing challenges to the courts from rising costs, process delay and growth in the numbers of citizens unable, owing to cost, to pursue or defend litigation.
In Europe what is bringing court administrations together in their development of ODR has been the issue of human rights and access to justice, which explains why an overall influence in the sharing of knowledge and experience in ODR has been the Council of Europe. This was a body set up in the immediate aftermath of World War II with a view to encouraging European states to work together in advancing and protecting human rights. Its greatest creation has been the European Convention on Human Rights and, of particular relevance, Article 6, which secures the right to a “public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law”.
This article tracks various developments from bodies within the structure of the Council of Europe with regard to the application of ODR to the judicial system. These developments extend from research and debate on whether the overall impact on human rights and, in particular, access to justice, of ODR could be seen as a threat, and thus something to be protected against, or in a more positive light and, therefore, to be encouraged. This article tracks the formation of various bodies within the Council of Europe, such as the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice , The Working Group on Cyberjustice and Artificial Intelligence and, most recently, the European Cyberjustice Network. This article also notes outcomes such as the Report on the impact of ODR on Human Rights produced by the Committee of Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Council of Europe and the European Ethical Guidelines on the use of AI in judicial systems produced by The Working Group on Cyberjustice and Artificial Intelligence of the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice.

In this article, we investigate whether the conditions for the emergence of an online dispute resolution (ODR) market in Portuguese-speaking countries have been met. The size of the Portuguese-speaking population and the internet penetration in Portuguese-speaking countries may look promising, but what is called networked readiness as well as the legal context needs to be factored in before any conclusion may be drawn.

This contribution has emerged in response to the provocations of the editor, Daniel Rainey, about the interest in knowing the status and use of technology by the Brazilian judicial system. It is based on the premise that the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of technological tools, even in complex legal systems such as that in Brazil. There is still much to be built on it, and there are many opportunities for adopting online solutions as a means of accessing justice.

El uso de la Tecnología aplicada a los métodos de resolución de conflictos, que desde hace varios años viene abriéndose camino con la presencia de las ODR (On line Dispute Resolution), han experimentado en el año 2020, a raíz del confinamiento obligatorio impuesto en muchos países como consecuencia de la Pandemia por covid 19, una proliferación asombrosa, constituyéndose en casi la alternativa válida de acceso a la justicia a nivel mundial. Por ello, nos proponemos abordar en este trabajo la transformación Digital que se ha ido desarrollando sobre las ODR, en los diferentes países de Hispanoamérica, y cómo la situación de Pandemia aceleró ese proceso de transformación.

Starting from the premise that the pandemic caused by the new coronavirus forced the growth of dispute resolution technologies in Brazil and around the world, this article presents a critique of one of the central arguments for the deployment of online dispute resolution techniques in the courts: that courts are a mere service. It proposes, therefore, the thesis that the term courts, as a synonym of the jurisdictional function, can be understood neither as a public service nor as a mere place but rather as a condition of possibility for fundamental rights, be it in physical or digital environments. In order to guarantee that the execution of procedural acts in digital environments conforms to the democratic constitutional procedure, this article proposes to create a seal of recognition to be granted by the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB) to the platforms that operate according to the due constitutional process. It is also suggested that minimal guidelines be formulated that are capable of offering a reference for the discussions, development, use and integration of online conflict resolution platforms, as well as that institutional protocols be adopted as a means of democratizing the application of technology in law.

Various of our academic board analysed employment law cases from last year.

Judges and public prosecutors across Europe continue to be the main source of referral of cases to restorative justice programmes organised in the context of the criminal justice system. As a result, the training of these two groups of legal professionals regarding what restorative justice is and what it can offer to victims, offenders and the community has for many years been identified as a priority for the development of restorative justice in the European Union (EU). However, little information is available about what actually exists in terms of judicial training on restorative justice within the national judicial training institutions responsible for the initial and/or continuous training of judges and/or public prosecutors. Therefore, we developed an online survey on judicial training on restorative justice and invited 38 judicial training institutions operating in the (then) 28 EU Member States to participate in our study. We were able to make relevant observations regarding the reasons for the non-existence of restorative justice training in most of the judicial training institutions studied and identify important elements of the architecture of the restorative justice training offered by the judicial training institution of Czech Republic.

Restorative justice has frequently been presented as a new criminal justice paradigm, and as something that is radically different from punishment. I will argue that this ‘oppositioning’ is problematic for two reasons: first, because some cases of restorative justice constitute de facto punishment from the perspectives of some positions on what punishment is; second, because restorative justice could reasonably be more widely adopted as a new form of de jure punishment, which could potentially increase the use of restorative justice for the benefit of victims, offenders and society at large. In connection with the latter, I want to present some preliminary thoughts on how restorative justice could be incorporated into future criminal justice systems as de jure punishment. Furthermore, I will suggest that by insisting that restorative justice is radically different from punishment, restorative justice advocates may - contrary to their intentions − play into the hands of those who want to preserve the status quo rather than developing future criminal justice systems in the direction of restorative justice.

Restorative justice has been criticised for not adequately giving serious consideration to the ‘public’ character of crimes. By bringing the ownership of the conflict involved in crime back to the victim and thus ‘privatising’ the conflict, restorative justice would overlook the need for crimes to be treated as public matters that concern all citizens, because crimes violate public values, i.e., values that are the foundation of a political community. Against this I argue that serious wrongs, like murder or rape, are violations of agent-neutral values that are fundamental to our humanity. By criminalising such serious wrongs we show that we take such violations seriously and that we stand in solidarity with victims, not in their capacity as compatriots but as fellow human beings. Such solidarity is better expressed by organising restorative procedures that serve the victim’s interest than by insisting on the kind of public condemnation and penal hardship that retributivists deem necessary ‘because the public has been wronged’. The public nature of crimes depends not on the alleged public character of the violated values but on the fact that crimes are serious wrongs that provoke a (necessarily reticent) response from government officials such as police, judges and official mediators.

The COIVD-19 pandemic has drawn an increasing level of attention to the role of online dispute resolution (ODR) in dispute resolution systems. As ODR becomes increasingly prevalent, unique characteristics of conducting text-based mediations via ODR platforms begin to surface, warranting discussion on modifying mediator practises to adapt to ODR platforms. This article shines a light on the advantages and disadvantages of text-based mediations through interviews with court administrators and mediators with text-based mediation experience. Accordingly, this article proposes recommendations on training mediators to use ODR platforms and modifying their practises to achieve the best outcomes in text-based mediations. Focusing on the qualitative data and information gathered from these conducted interviews, this article seeks to offer practical advice about preparing mediators to participate in text-based mediations.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced courts around the world to embrace technology and other innovative measures in order to continue functioning. This article explores how Australian courts have approached this challenge. We show how adaptations in response to the pandemic have sometimes been in tension with principles of open justice, procedural fairness and access to justice, and consider how courts have attempted to resolve that tension.