Zybnek Loebl
The European Commission is more and more active on ODR. The development of ODR has been included among the actions of the European Commission’s Digital Agenda,which can be found online at:http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/digital-agenda/documents/digital-agenda-communication-en.pdf
On page 13,it is mentioned:“Explore by 2011,via a Green Paper,initiatives on consumer Alternative Dispute Resolution in the EU with a view to making proposals for an EU-wide Online Dispute Resolution system for eCommerce transactions by 2012″.
Similarly,in the European Commission’s work programme it is mentioned that one of the tasks of the European Commission is to “develop an EU wide strategy to improve ADR systems and propose an EU wide online redress tool for e-commerce transactions by 2012 to improve access to justice online.”
In proposing the new EU-wide system we should try to encourage and promote the development of a new global ODR e-commerce system of which the EU-wide ODR would be an integral part. Internet is global and e-commerce is becoming more and more global as well. It would be very difficult to meet the requirements of the key players (i.e. businesses and consumers,for cheap and efficient multi-lingual cross-border ODR,easy to use by businesses and consumers and encouraging global cross-border commerce) if the ODR system is built as European-only or American-only or Asian-only.
Multi-lingual EU with its long tradition of ADR/ODR and established network of national consumer organizations and recognized ADR/ODR providers can actively contribute to the establishment of the global ODR system.
It seems that the current European,American and other initiatives related to ODR which have been discussed broadly on this website – e.g. in a detailed manner in the preceding blog by Vikki Rogers and Christopher Bloch may-can-should be merging into a single flexible but robust global initiative.
