The Impact of Culture in Online Dispute Resolution for Maritime Disputes

The author considers recent developments which have taken dispute resolution
online, to explore how new opportunities are being created to enhance the
alternative dispute resolution process by creating an open space for cross-cultural parties in an ever-globalised maritime world, noticing that,
paradoxically perhaps, the distance created by cyberspace can be used to the
advantage of parties who may well be remote from each other in geographical
and also cultural terms. In this she agrees with previous commentators that the
removal of the necessity for a physical forum can significantly reduce the effect
that symbolism suggests to the parties. In so doing she argues that the place of
culture in arbitration and mediation studies is far from a ‘red herring’; indeed,
technology should be viewed as more of a ‘catalyst’ and less than a ‘barrier’ in
the Internet Age. The increase in the volume of disputants and the growing
number of disputing and cultural contexts in which technology may be used,
she finds, should provide an incentive to design information processing and
communication applications with features sensitive to cultural contexts and to
the needs of disputants and third parties. The question is raised as to whether a
regulatory framework should be formed to provide a common platform of
reference for all parties involved.