In Search of Microjustice: Five Basic Elements of a Dispute System

Abstract

This paper integrates findings from legal needs studies, institutional economics, and interdisciplinary conflict research to develop a framework for analyzing dispute systems. Five essential tasks that a dispute system facilitates are identified and the basic technologies for supplying them. Complementarities between these five types of services are discussed, as well as common elements of dispute systems that may be useful add-ons, but do not seem to belong to the essential core.

Establishing the necessary and sufficient elements of a dispute system leads to useful insights about the place of dispute services such as mediation, lawyers, and courts in the broader institutional setting of a dispute system. The framework is also a contribution to the emerging discipline of dispute system design. The framework can be a tool for evaluating existing dispute systems, and for developing innovative, affordable and sustainable access to justice (microjustice).

Keywords: dispute system design, legal procedure, negotiation, access to justice, conflict resolution, negotiation

JEL Classification: C78, D23, D26, I31, K40, K41, O17