Digital Justice Reshaping Boundaries in an Online Dispute Resolution Environment * Orna Rabinovich-Einy & Ethan Katsh ** Abstract Digital technology is transforming the landscape of dispute resolution: it is generat- ing 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 dis- pute resolution landscape, one that is based on fewer physical, conceptual, psychol- ogical 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 dis- pute 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 chal- lenges such logic is facing with the spread of online dispute resolution. Keywords: ADR, ODR, DSD, digital technology, boundaries, dispute prevention. 1. Introduction Technology is transforming the landscape of disputing. Even more than in the past, ‘conflict is a growth industry’ 1 as consumers have problems with trans- actions, citizens worry about preserving their identity, businesses face threats to * The issues discussed in this article will be explored in more detail in Digital Justice: Why Conflict is a Growth Industry and What We Can Do About It, a book to be published by Oxford University Press. ** Orna Rabinovich-Einy is Senior Lecturer, University of Haifa School of Law. Fellow, National Center for Technology and Dispute Resolution. For advice and suggestions we appreciate the guidance received from participants in the Cardozo Works in Progress conference in November 2013 and the Copenhagen Business School – Haifa Law Faculty Colloquium. Ethan Katsh is Director, National Center for Technology and Dispute Resolution and Professor Emeritus of Legal Studies, University of Massachusetts at Amherst. This article has benefited from research supported by National Science Foundation award #0968536, ‘The Fourth Party: Improving Computer-Mediated Deliberation through Cognitive, Social and Emotional Support’, <www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0968536>. 1 R. Fisher & W. Ury, Getting to Yes, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, 1981, p. 17. International Journal of Online Dispute Resolution 2014 (1) 1 5 This article from International Journal of Online Dispute Resolution is published by Eleven international publishing and made available to anonieme bezoeker