Defining Quality in Dispute Resolution: Taxonomies and Anti-Taxonomies of Quality Arguments

Abstract

[T]his paper explores three or four separate but related dimensions of arguments about quality in dispute resolution. In each dimension, this article explores what might be called the taxonomies and anti-taxonomies that emerged in the workshop discussions, by which I mean the conceptual frameworks that were presented implicitly or explicitly as valid, and alternative frameworks that were offered to challenge their validity. Part II explains how the proceedings revealed and challenged the litigation/alternative dispute resolution ( ADR ) dichotomy regarding processes to be studied. Part III describes the argument for context-specific analysis of quality in dispute resolution, the challenge to which is discussed in Part VI. Part IV reaches the original target, definitions of quality in dispute resolution, and presents a categorization or taxonomy of definitions implied by the proceedings. In the process, Part IV describes one view of the different interests engaged in defining dispute resolution quality standards and sets against it an alternative view of interests. Part IV also emphasizes the ambiguity of the definitions of quality suggested in the workshop discussions. Parts V and VI speculate on the reasons for this ambiguity, and suggest the beginnings of an anti-taxonomy of quality standards, and directions for future work

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