With the rapid growth of Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) in a number of sectors, it is vital to establish ethical standards to undergird the design, structure, practices, and implementation of global online dispute resolution systems. This simplified standard set builds on previous work by the National Center for Technology and Dispute Resolution on principles for ODR practice. Taken together, they are intended to provide a touchstone for best practices, rules, qualifications, and certification efforts for online dispute resolution processes and practices.
These ODR Standards apply to We Agree Online Mediators and to technological platforms, systems, and tools when employed for dispute handling. They are interdependent and must be applied together. They can be useful for ODR software and system developers and to inform the public of requirements for ethical, technology-infused dispute resolution. Reference to "ODR" in the Standards includes people, entities, and technologies involved in implementing, hosting, or providing ODR services.
We Agree Online Mediators Standards require that online dispute resolution platforms and processes must be:
1. Accessible - We Agree Online Mediators must ensure that the We Agree Mediators Online Platform is easy for parties to find within a system and participate in, without limiting their right to representation. It should be available in communication channels accessible to all parties, minimize costs to participants, and be easily accessed by people with different types of abilities.
2. Accountable - We Agree Online Mediators must ensure that the We Agree Mediators Online Platform remains continuously accountable to the institutions, legal frameworks, and communities it serves. The platform must be auditable, and the audit made available to users. This must include human oversight of various aspects, including traceability of the originality of documents and of the path to outcome when artificial intelligence is employed, determination of the relative control given to human and artificial decision-making strategies, outcomes, and the process of ensuring the availability of outcomes to the parties.
3. Competent - We Agree Online Mediators must have the relevant expertise in dispute resolution, legal matters, technical execution, language, and culture required to deliver competent, effective services in their target areas. ODR services must be timely and use participant time efficiently.
4. Confidential - We Agree Online Mediators must make every genuine and reasonable effort to maintain the confidentiality of party communications in line with policies that must be articulated to the parties regarding who will see what data, how and to what purposes that data can be used, how data will be stored, if, how, and when data will be destroyed or modified, and how disclosures of breaches will be communicated and the steps that will be taken to prevent reoccurrence.
5. Equal - We Agree Online Mediators must treat all participants with respect and dignity. The We Agree Mediators Online Platform must seek to enable often silenced or marginalized voices to be heard and strive to ensure that offline privileges and disadvantages are not replicated in the ODR process. It must provide access to process instructions, security, confidentiality, and data control to all parties. The platform must strive to ensure on an on-going basis that no process or technology incorporated into it provides any party with a technological or informational advantage due to its use. Bias must be proactively avoided in all processes, contexts, and regarding party characteristics. Platform design must include proactive efforts to prevent any artificial intelligence decision-making function from creating, replicating, or compounding bias in process or outcome. Human oversight is required in platform design and auditing to identify bias, make findings transparent to We Agree Online Mediators and users, and eliminate bias in processes and outcomes.
6.Fair and Impartial - We Agree Online Mediators must ensure that the We Agree Mediators Online Platform treats all parties equitably and with due process, without bias or benefits for or against individuals, groups, or entities. Conflicts of interest of We Agree Online Mediators, participants, and system administrators must be disclosed in advance of commencement of ODR services. The obligation to disclose such circumstances shall be a continuing obligation throughout the ODR process.
7. Legal - We Agree Online Mediators must abide by, uphold, and disclose to the parties relevant laws and regulations under which the process falls.
8. Secure - We Agree Online Mediators must make every genuine and reasonable effort to ensure that the We Agree Mediators Online Platform is secure and data collected and communications between those engaged in ODR are not shared with any unauthorized parties. Disclosures of breaches must be communicated along with the steps taken to prevent reoccurrence.
9. Transparent - We Agree Online Mediators must explicitly disclose in advance and in a meaningful and accessible manner the form and enforceability of dispute resolution processes and outcomes and the risks, costs including for whom, and benefits of participation. Data in ODR must be gathered, managed, and presented in ways to ensure it is not misrepresented or out of context. The sources and methods used to gather any data that influences any decision made by artificial intelligence must be disclosed to all parties. The platform must publicly affirm compliance with jurisdictionally relevant legislation, regulations, or in their absence, guidelines on transparency and fairness of artificial intelligence systems if it uses AI. The platform must clearly disclose the role and magnitude of technology’s influence on restricting or generating options and in final decisions or outcomes. Audits of the platform must identify metrics used to assess system performance, making the accuracy and precision of these metrics known and accessible to any platform operator and user. Users must be informed in a timely and accessible manner of any data breach and the steps taken to prevent reoccurrence.
Implementation of We Agree Online Mediators Standards - We recommend practitioners, platform and system designers, and managers of any form of online dispute resolution process commit to these We Agree Online Mediators Standards. We encourage dispute resolution membership organizations and other entities, whether public or private, with responsibility for and/or authority over ODR-related processes, practices, and practitioners, to incorporate these standards and create appropriate mechanisms for accountability and monitoring, including through the examination of impacts of different technological designs and use across disputant demographics and case types.