Mention of ODR.info CAL LAW, California's Legal News Source

from "ADR Is Just So Analog: Dispute resolution goes high-tech with ODR" by Robert J. Ambrogi
November 24, 2004

"A superb resource for keeping track of developments in this field is at ODR.info, www.odr.info, the newest home of the Center for Information Technology and Dispute Resolution at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. It exists to explore the use of technology and the Internet in dispute resolution. Directed by professors Ethan Katsh and Janet Rifkin, the center has been an innovator and leader in ODR since the early days of the Web.

On the site, the center publishes a Web log about ODR as well as a newsletter, ODR Monthly, and hosts an electronic discussion list about dispute resolution. The center has ongoing programs of study and research and also offers consulting services to other organizations that want to develop online ADR programs and resources. "

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ICANN Announces Selection of Ombudsman

As a timely update to Ethan's recent post, ICANN announced the selection of an Ombudsman on 24 November. Frank Fowlie is ICANN Ombudsman effecitve immediately.

According to the release, Mr. Fowlie is a native of Canada with 20 years of experience as a conflict resolution specialist who has worked for agencies of the Canadian government and the United Nations.

"Consistent with his independent status, the Ombudsman will have his own separate offices, as well as access to ICANN's offices in Marina del Rey, USA, and Brussels, Belgium.

The principal function of the Ombudsman shall be to provide an independent internal evaluation of complaints by members of the ICANN community who believe that the ICANN staff, Board or an ICANN constituent body has treated them unfairly. The Ombudsman shall serve as an objective advocate for fairness, and shall seek to evaluate and where possible resolve complaints about unfair or inappropriate treatment by ICANN staff, the Board, or ICANN constituent bodies, clarifying the issues and using conflict resolution tools such as negotiation, facilitation, and "shuttle diplomacy" to achieve these results.

The Ombudsman's first order of business will be to develop, with community feedback, an operational framework and contact mechanisms."

www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-24nov04-2.htm

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Cybersettle in UK joint venture

Cybersettle in joint venture with Steeles
Legal IT - London,UK
... has formed a joint venture -- Cybersettle UK Limited -- with a UK commercial law firm, Steeles (law), to promote its online dispute resolution product in the ...
http://www.legalit.net/ViewItem.asp?id=22117

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Where is the ICANN ombudsman?

ICANN, the entity responsible for managing the domain name system, has been an object of interest for the dispute resolution community for the manner in which it has managed (or mismanaged) its Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy. The following is an update on another ICANN dispute resolution activity, that of appointing an ombudsman and establishing an ombuds office.

In less than a month, on December 15, 2004, ICANN will observe the second anniversary of its adoption of new by-laws. Article 5 of the bylaws reads as follows:

Section 1. OFFICE OF OMBUDSMAN

1. There shall be an Office of Ombudsman, to be managed by an Ombudsman and to include such staff support as the Board determines is appropriate and feasible. The Ombudsman shall be a full-time position, with salary and benefits appropriate to the function, as determined by the Board.
2. The Ombudsman shall be appointed by the Board for an initial term of two years, subject to renewal by the Board.
3. The Ombudsman shall be subject to dismissal by the Board only upon a three-fourths (3/4) vote of the entire Board.
4. The annual budget for the Office of Ombudsman shall be established by the Board as part of the annual ICANN budget process. The Ombudsman shall submit a proposed budget to the President, and the President shall include that budget submission in its entirety and without change in the general ICANN budget recommended by the ICANN President to the Board. Nothing in this Article shall prevent the President from offering separate views on the substance, size, or other features of the Ombudsman's proposed budget to the Board.

ICANN advertised for the position of ombudsman over a year ago. Perhaps ICANN will tell us tomorrow or the next day who the individual is who will serve as its first ombudsman. If that were to occurr, we might continue to wonder how this appointment could have possibly taken two years but we could also move on and hope that the ICANN ombuds office functions as the ICANN reform process hoped it would. Yet, the appointment of the ombudsman, at this moment, is highly troubling and seems to be an endless process with unexplained and unexplainable delays.

A little more than a month ago, in its tenth report to the United States Department of Commerce, submitted on October 7, 2004, ICANN stated that

The last report indicated that ICANN had retained the services of a professional search firm in order to locate and hire a suitable candidate for the position of Ombudsman. After an intensive search, that candidate has been located and contract terms have been settled. The identity of the candidate will be publicly announced in the near future.

What the "last" report, the Ninth Report to the Department of Commerce (April 7, 2004), also stated was that “ICANN expects to have this position filled and for the ombudsman program to be fully launched before June 30, 2004.” That did not happen. It is almost six weeks since the statement was made in the Tenth Report that the “The identity of the candidate will be publicly announced in the near future.” That has not happened. It is almost four months since President Twomey announced at an ICANN meeting in Kuala Lumpur that “we are very close to having the ombudsman situation finalized.” At this date, nothing appears to have been finalized. It is more than six weeks since President Twomey suggested to a U.S. Senate committee on September 30. 2004 that the ombudsman office had already been established. There is no evidence that this statement was accurate.

ICANN has pledged many times to improve levels of transparency and accountability. After many years of controversy, ICANN finally, in April 2004, appointed a dispute resolution provider to allow review of board actions (although I have been completely unable to find where on the ICANN Web site there is any information about the independent review process). The series of delays involving the ombudsman prompted me to complain to President Twomey nine months ago. If transparency and accountability were taken seriously, we would not see the pattern of delays and non-action that continues to this day.

In 2009, we will celebrate the appointment of the first ombudsman, a position mandated by the Swedish constitution. We have almost two hundred years of experience with this position, one that in recent decades has become quite common. ICANN is a novel entity but it is hard to understand why it would take ICANN longer to appoint such a person than it did the Swedes in 1809.

Ethan Katsh
Professor and Director
Center for Information Technology and Dispute Resolution
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, MA

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Microsoft to power Philippines' New ODR Provider

Most of the readers of odr.info know about the great work Claro Parlade has done in setting up the CPCAP ODR service in the Philippines. It is quickly emerging as the most robust and well designed ODR platforms currently operational in Asia.

I just wanted to let folks know that Microsoft has highlighted their involvement in the project and posted a press release trumpeting the power their .Net platform brought to the CPCAP ODR system architecture. (As a side note, odr.info also runs on a Microsoft server, but it does not use the .Net architecture).

Microsoft's involvement in this project represents a huge legitimization not only of Claro's project but of ODR as a whole. It also raises the possibility that other ODR providers around the world might be able to invite Microsoft to participate as a technology partner, perhaps utilizing some of the same code base used in the Philippines.

From the release:
"The Philippines' first Online Dispute Resolution ("ODR") service will be built using Microsoft technology. This is in line with Microsoft Philippines' expressed support for the project spearheaded by the Cyberspace Policy Center for Asia-Pacific (CPCAP).

The ODR project is currently in its second phase, which involves design of the ODR process and software development. The first phase was a research on ODR as an instrument of judicial reform. Both phases were supported by Asia Foundation and PABLAW, a leading law firm noted for its IT-law expertise.

For the second phase, CPCAP invited Microsoft Philippines to be its technology partner. The third phase, involving a one-year pilot test of the ODR service, is scheduled to commence in August this year. In the pilot phase, the ODR service will be focusing on franchise-related disputes, consumer disputes and e-commerce disputes. But other focus areas, such as banking and financial services disputes, are still under consideration."

more...

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New ODR services in Malaysia and India

I just found out yesterday about two new ODR providers in Malaysia and India. Both are powered by ODRWorld, a project founded by Chittu Nagarajan and Muthu Singaram. I've had a chance to play with the platforms for the last 24 hours and I'm quite impressed. The sites offer four services: Assisted Negotiation, Automated Negotiation, Mediation, and Conflict Resolution. As far as I know they're the first ODR sites in either country, and as such their launch marks a pretty significant expansion of our field!

I encourage you to drop by the site and take a look. I think they've done a great job. I encourage anyone interested in ODR in South Asia to reach out to Chittu -- she's been very helpful and responsive, and I bet she'd be willing to let you look around the functionality on a trial basis at no cost.

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NY Times article on virtual worlds

There have been a few recent entries about designing dispute resolution systems for massive multi-plyer online role playing games and the New York Law School State of Play (http://www.nyls.edu/stateofplay) conference that had a workshop on ODR in these environments. Today's New York Times has an interesting article about Second Life, perhaps the most innovative of the virtual worlds and one that has been the most interested in using ODR. The article is Do-It-Yourselfers Buy Into This Virtual World
By Stephen Totilo

If you have trouble accessing the Times, let me know and I can send you a copy. Some of my own thoughts about ODR in these "spaces" are:
Bringing Online Dispute Resolution to Virtual Worlds: Creating Processes Through Code http://www.odr.info/katsh/katsh_nylslawreview.pdf and Can Avatars Lead us to a New Model of Dispute Resolution? http://www.nyls.edu/pdfs/katsh(2).pdf

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New ODR Website

In an effort to spur the use of the Internet for legal exercises, the Cyberspace Policy Center for Asia Pacific (CPCAP) has opened up the country’s first online dispute mediation website.
http://news.inq7.net/infotech/index.php?index=1&story_id=17600

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Online Feuds

Online Feuds a Big Headache http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,65562,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_5

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Dispute Resolution and Trust Building in Virtual Worlds

A workshop on Dispute Resolution and Trust Building in Virtual Worlds was held at the second State of Play conference at New York Law School October 30, 2004.

The session was chaired by Ethan Katsh (U.Mass/Center for Dispute Resolution) Robin Harper (SVP Marketing and Business Development, Linden Lab) and Colin Rule (Director, Online Dispute Resolution, Ebay).

Several cases taken from Second Life were shared, including transaction disputes, zoning/neighbor matters, and public protests. The conversation covered wide ground, including online contracts, the role of mediation in online communities, democracy and voting, public vs. private disputes, and customer service vs. member-to-member dispute resolution. All in all it was a very interesting discussion, and one that began to raise the complex matters we will all have to deal with in the future of ODR.

Turns out Wired did an article on the meeting -- they pretty much captured the discussion accurately, which is more than I can say for other articles I've read on ODR!

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