Digital technology is transforming the landscape of dispute resolution: it is generating an ever growing number of disputes and at the same time is challenging the effectiveness and reach of traditional dispute resolution avenues. While technology has been a disruptive force in the field, it also holds a promise for an improved dispute resolution landscape, one that is based on fewer physical, conceptual, psychological and professional boundaries, while enjoying a higher degree of transparency, participation and change. This promise remains to be realized as the underlying assumptions and logic of the field of dispute resolution have remained as they were since the last quarter of the 20th century, failing to reflect the future direction dispute resolution mechanisms can be expected to follow, as can be learned from the growth of online dispute resolution. This article explores the logic of boundaries that has shaped the traditional dispute resolution landscape, as well as the challenges such logic is facing with the spread of online dispute resolution.

Despite the evolution and the experience in the field of ODR, it appears that some aspects remain to be clarified in order to attempt to determine which type of procedure would be best adapted to consumer disputes. What does online arbitration mean and is this ODR? What is the profile of the users making use of ODR? What mechanisms are adapted to business disputes and to consumer disputes? Are procedural issues for disputes resolved through mediation similar to those resolved through arbitration? The article discusses about indispensable clarifications which may have an impact on the choice of procedure: mediation or arbitration. It then raises issues related to the UNCITRAL ODR WG discussions on a redress system for cross-border consumer disputes and questions whether types of disputes and potential mechanisms are not confused. Finally, the European Union which adopted a Regulation on ODR for consumer disputes may have found a solution.

‘Third Party Ethics in the Age of the Fourth Party’ presents and discusses some of the ethical impacts of the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in third party practice (mediation, facilitation, arbitration, etc.). The article argues that all of the ethical requirements related to third party practice have been affected by the use of ICT, that ethical standards of practice must be reviewed in light of the use of ICT, and that changes in ethical requirements based on the use of ICT will be evolutionary, not revolutionary.

This paper provides an account of what makes age discrimination special, going through a set of possible justifications. In the end, it turns out that a full understanding of the specialness of age-based differential treatment requires that we consider together the ‘reliable proxy,’ the ‘complete-life neutrality,’ the ‘sequence efficiency’ and the ‘affirmative egalitarian’ accounts. Depending on the specific age criteria, all four accounts may apply or only some of them. This is the first key message of this paper. The second message of the paper has to do with the age group/birth cohort distinction. All measures that have a differential impact on different cohorts also tend to have a differential impact on various age groups during the transition. The paper points at the practical implications of anti-age-discrimination law for differential treatment between birth cohorts. The whole argument is confronted all along with ECJ cases.

This article argues that the right to have rights, as launched by Hannah Arendt, is relative to refugee displacement and hence translates as a right to asylum. It takes issue with the dominant view that the public/private divide is the locus classicus of the meaning of this primordial right. A different direction of thought is proposed, proceeding from Arendt’s recovery of the spatiality of law. The unencompassibility of place in matters of rights, freedom and equality brings this right into view as a claim at the behest of those who have lost a legal place of their own. This also helps us to gain better understanding of Arendt’s rebuttal of the sharp-edged distinction between refugees and stateless persons and to discover the defiant potential of the right to have rights to illuminate the refugee’s claim to asylum as a claim to an own place where protection can be enjoyed again.

The rule of law and its promotion abroad is currently at the core of EU external policies, specifically in the European neighbourhood. But has it always been the case? This article traces the rule of law component of EU external policies in general and EU–Ukraine relations as a case study, and reveals that in the last two decades the rule of law has followed a thorny path to the spotlight, emerging from a rather peripheral place in the 1990s to its currently central one. The article argues that this is a result of three processes: the legislative mainstreaming of the rule of law in the EU itself, the growing ambitiousness of EU–Ukraine relations, and the increased visibility of systemic shortcomings in rule of law application in Ukraine due to the trials of opposition politicians since 2010. The article concludes by suggesting that rule of law components of other EU bilateral relations in the European neighbourhood and beyond are subject to similar processes.

At the heart of the European Union legal order lie values directed collectively to the idea of European integration. As a body with significant governmental and lawmaking powers, the Union also presents itself as an institution based upon the rule of law. The Union ‘constitution’ therefore expresses both regulatory powers direct­ed towards European integration as well as rule of law principles whose scope of application is limited by the terms of the Treaties. In this article I consider how this distinctive amalgam of values operates as a constitution for the European Union, by comparison with domestic constitutional values within the Member States. I also consider how Union constitutional demands condition and inform the legal practices of the Court of Justice. Here I identify the interpretive effects of superior Union laws –‍ the core Treaty objectives as well as rule of law principles found within the General Principles ‍– as of particular significance in developing the legal influences of the entire Union project of integration.

Ever since its creation and coming into force in 2003, the Kimberley Process has elicited a number of academic commentaries coming from different backgrounds. Legal scholars who have contributed to the commentaries, simply projected the regulatory regime as an international soft law without further analysis, based on an evaluation of the text of the agreement. This article in contrast, explores its practical effects and the manner of obligations that it imposes on its participant countries. It argues that although the regime may have been a soft law by classification, its obligations are hard and are no different from those of a conventional treaty. Those obligations enhance its juridical force, and are a factor by which the regime on its own tends to nullify the traditional criteria for distinction between hard and soft law in international jurisprudence, because it has elements of both.

This article proposes the need for ‘dualism’ in the legal system, where civil and criminal offences are considered at the same time, and where both the person complaining and the person responding are on trial at the same time. Considered is how reforming the police and judiciary, such as by replacing the police with legal aid solicitors and giving many of their other powers to the National Crime Agency could improve outcomes for all. The perils of the current system, which treats the accused as criminals until proven not guilty, are critiqued, and suggestions for replacing this process with courts of law that treat complainant and respondent equally are made. The article discusses how such a system based on dualism might have operated during the August 2011 UK riots, where the situation had such a dramatic effect on how the social networking aspects, such as ‘Internet trolling’, affected it.

The article analyses the implementation of better regulation measures in the internal security (IS) strategies, draft legislation and administrative routines of the Estonian Ministry of the Interior. The article includes the results of five substudies: (a) the research problem emerged from the studies of the explanatory memoranda of draft laws 2004-2009 according to which the Ministry has some deficiencies in fulfilling the better regulation requirements; (b) mapping of better regulation and internal security policy concepts; (c) content analysis of Estonian IS strategy documents; (d) systematization of Estonian IS laws; and (e) sociological e-survey of officials. Theoretical framework integrates the concepts of institutional theory, discursive democracy, realistic legisprudence and the adaptive strategic management.The main conclusions drawn by the article are as follows: the analysis of the knowledge of draft legislation and the excessive amount of laws in the IS field gives evidence of a lack of systematic regulatory impact assessment (IA); the concept of better regulation is not integrated into IS policy documents (insufficient planning and budgeting of IA); and a sociological e-survey of the officials of the Ministry indicates discontent with the management of the IA of policies and draft legislation. According to institutional analysis, this shows readiness for changes in the context of risk society challenges and adaptation with budgetary contractions.

The Botswana judicial and legal system has undergone a wave of reforms over the past few years. These reforms include judicial case management, which was introduced to reduce unnecessary delays and backlog in the hearing of cases. The introduction of judicial case management necessitates a revision of the rules of court. While the rules of the courts principally relate to civil proceedings, criminal proceedings are principally regulated by the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act. However, the revised rules of court contain provisions that seek to bring criminal proceedings in line with judicial case management. A number of these provisions are inconsistent with the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act. This presents problems for the implementation of these rules as the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act is superior to the rules in the hierarchy of laws. Consequently, the implementation of judicial case management in criminal proceedings may prove to be an arduous task, and urgent harmonisation of the competing provisions is required.

The widespread production and use of illicit drugs is a social phenomenon carrying enormous social, economic, and political significance. The United States stands as a vocal and forceful proponent of prohibitionist drug controls in international policymaking. However, strictly enforced US prohibitionist drug controls largely fail to effectively reduce the consumption of narcotic drugs and ultimately create a significant number of negative consequences for many peoples throughout the world. The increased violence, government corruption and community sequestration that result from the war against drugs are deleterious to economic development among rural communities in drug producing countries. In response to these concerns, this article examines the purpose, effects and consequences of the prohibitive drug controls routinely employed by the United States. Special attention is paid to an oft-overlooked repercussion of prohibitive drug controls: the marginalisation of developmental human rights for peoples in drug producing countries.

Compared with other disciplines in the social sciences, conflict resolution is a relatively new, emerging professional and academic field. Many developments have shaped the current reality and boundaries of the field. This article is an attempt to provide a set of reflections on the major issues, challenges and possible future directions facing the field of conflict resolution. By narrating my own personal and professional journey, I hope to capture certain aspects and perspectives of this field. This is not a comprehensive review or ‘scientific’ charting of the field, nevertheless it attempts to shed light on areas and concepts that are otherwise taken for granted or neglected when the mapping of the field is done through more extensive empirical research. This mapping of conflict resolution after 30 years of practice, teaching and research first involves reflections on the conceptual or so-called theoretical groundings of the field. Second, it examines the various professional practices that have branched out through the last few decades. Third, it identifies some of the current limitations and challenges facing conflict resolution practitioners and scholars in their struggle to position the field in relation to current global realities. The final section discusses possible future directions to address existing gaps and refocus the research agenda of the field.

The article re-theorizes peacebuilding through the critique of the universalizing tendencies prominent in peace and conflict research. The critique is targeted both at the medical analogy and liberal peace theory which epitomize universalism in their own ways. By presenting a case study on a seemingly insignificant, minor and mundane event and person, a Finnish woman Kaisu, the article seeks to demonstrate the usefulness of cultural understanding of peacebuilding and the ethnographic fieldwork methods which open up interesting research questions for the research field. It is shown how peacebuilding is about politics that is ‘not yet’. During peacebuilding society needs to face its troubled past with its full complexity and create a space for constant struggle that does not seek consensus, but rather engages the society in agonistic politics and democracy. Ultimately, the article suggests that the agency of parrhestiastes, truth-speaker, opens up a necessary space for post-conflict peacebuilding as it reveals the fragmented nature of the national self.

In 2011, following his 2005 initial mandate of the UN Commission on Human Rights and his extended 2008 mandate of the UN Human Rights Council, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) on the issues of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, Professor John Ruggie, issued the final text of the ‘Guiding Principles for the Implementation of the United Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework”‘. The 2008 Framework on Business and Human Rights and the complementing 2011 Guiding Principles consist of three pillars: the duty of states to protect human rights, the responsibility of business enterprises to respect human rights, and access to remedies for victims of human rights abuses. They currently qualify as the dominant paradigm in the corporate social responsibility (CSR) discourse, also because they now form part of various soft law and self-regulation initiatives. The Framework and Guiding Principles do not, however, specifically focus on environmental issues, but their systematic approach and structure do provide a model to address state duties and business responsibilities to care of the environment. This article is intended to complement the UN Framework and Guiding Principles on business and human rights with principles in the field of business and the environment. Hence, it is submitted that states have a customary duty to care for the environment; it is similarly submitted that business enterprises have a responsibility to care for the environment; and it is submitted that stakeholders must have access to remedies in relation to breaches of these duties and responsibilities.

The Special Representative to the UN Secretary-General on human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, John Ruggie, establishes access to remedy as one of the three pillars of the UN ‘Protect, Respect, Remedy’ Framework. In this Framework, Ruggie prescribes that company-based grievance mechanisms can be one effective means of enabling remediation to those potentially being impacted by business enterprises’ activities. This report proposes a model for company-based grievance mechanisms that follow a combination of interest-based and rights-compatible approaches to conflict resolution of all corporate social responsibility issues in company–stakeholder relationships.

Under current United States tax law, individual gifts to foreign charities generally are not deductible from federal income tax as charitable contributions. A comparative study of analogous tax laws in Switzerland and the United Kingdom demonstrates that the Swiss approach generally reflects the same prohibition against tax deductions for individual gifts to foreign charities, while British law permits such deductibility for gifts to qualified charities in other EU member states, Norway, and Iceland.
All three countries’ legal frameworks demonstrate that their respective notions of the ‘public interest’ significantly affect their approaches to deductibility for gifts to foreign charities. The British conception of public interest, enlarged by participation in the European Union and the nondiscrimination requirements of the EU treaties, is embodied in its more expansive deductibility rules. Swiss non-participation in the EU, by contrast, reflects a more isolationist notion of public interest and may inform its prohibition on deductions for gifts to foreign charities. The narrower Swiss approach parallels the United States’ approach, and it suggests that an American expansion of deductibility for foreign charitable gifts could be encouraged by American participation in the proposed TPP, TTIP, or other multilateral trade agreements or economic unions.