EDITORIAL Jurisdictional perspectives on alternative dispute resolution and access to justice: introduction Lola Akin Ojelabi 1 * and Mary Anne Noone 2 1 Associate Professor, La Trobe Law School, La Trobe University, Australia and 2 Professor, La Trobe Law School, La Trobe University, Australia *Corresponding author. E-mail: o.akinojelabi@latrobe.edu.au In many parts of the world, the adoption of alternative dispute-resolution 1 (ADR) processes was pre- mised on creating better access to justice for citizens, particularly those with lesser means (Woolf, 1996; Access to Justice Advisory Committee, 1994). ADR’s foundational link with access to justice is in relation to not only justice as a process for the resolution of disputes, but also justice in relation to equality of access and equitable outcomes. This Special Issue focuses on the relationship between ADR and access to justice in various contexts and jurisdictions, including Australia, China, England and Wales, Scotland and Singapore, and within the family-law system in Australia. The papers engage in a critical discussion of ADR’s contribution to access to justice in the resolution of disputes and, in particular, the extent to which ADR has contributed to improved access to justice. In doing this, the papers highlight the role of access-to-justice discourse in the development and growth of ADR; where available, review evaluations of access to justice in relation to ADR initiatives; and, finally, reflect on the future of ADR and access to justice. Justice is an integral part of any society and is relevant to any dispute-resolution system. Justice institutions and systems are set up to perform many important functions including the resolution of disputes. In many jurisdictions, ADR processes have now become an integral part of the civil justice systems. Often, ADR’s exponential growth has been in response to criticisms of the adversarial justice system as inaccessible, costly, unfair and oppressive (King et al., 2014). ADR processes, like mediation and conciliation, are considered non-adversarial and are used in various fields including commercial, insurance, family, health, small business, finance, construction and consumer disputes. Four decades ago, access to justice was defined as ‘the system by which people may vindicate their rights and/or resolve their disputes under the general auspices of the state’. Additionally, ‘the system must be equally accessible to all, and second, it must lead to results that are individually and socially just’ (Cappelletti and Garth, 1978, p. 6). More recently, it has been noted that there is often confusion as to the meaning of access to justice. Sackville argues that access to justice ‘conveys different meanings to different people’ (2018, p. 88). It can refer to ‘an ideal –“the fundamental principle that all people should enjoy equality before the law”– and a claim that the ideal is achievable’ (Sackville, 2018, p. 88) or to ‘dispute resolution in the civil justice system’ or to reform of the civil justice system, substantive law reform or ‘enforcement of legal constraints’ or, and more closely related to ADR, ‘innovative dis- pute resolution mechanisms adapted to the needs of poor and disadvantaged people’ and could also require ‘measures designed to allow for the realisation of economic, social and cultural rights, and to redress the power imbalances created by great inequalities of wealth’ (pp. 88, 89). The various under- standings of access to justice result in differences in how access to justice and ADR innovations are developed and assessed across jurisdictions and contexts. This Special Issue sheds some light on the approaches taken in different countries and contexts of ADR. © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press 1 Alternative dispute-resolution processes are processes of dispute resolution other than court or adversarial processes. They include mediation, conciliation and negotiation, to name a few. International Journal of Law in Context (2020), 1–5 doi:10.1017/S1744552320000087 https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744552320000087 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 54.163.42.124, on 21 Jul 2020 at 03:16:03, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at