Our Approach

The project involves both conceptual and empirical research, and has theoretical and prescriptive goals.

Theoretically, this project will develop a novel normative framework for a just dispute resolution system in which automation substitutes for human third parties. Such framework will uncover the new factors that comprise and shape access to justice, procedural justice, and substantive justice in automated processes. Prescriptively, the research will develop a novel typology of dispute systems design principles that promote access, equality, and impartiality, as well as devise a set of model procedural rules for the adoption of automated ODR systems in courts for different legal systems.
The proposed empirical study of the impact of DRA on justice will draw on several research sites of “DRA in action” in different locales (France, the Netherlands, the U.S. and Israel), which include different automation schemes, and are used in different settings, as well as lab experiments and interviews with designers and users of automated processes.