Student Anayansi Rojas Chan completes her Master's Degree in Law, Business and Justice with the Public Defense of her TFM in which she makes a Proposal to develop general rules and best practices for the application of online arbitration in Costa Rica.
17 july 2018
Title: Proposal to develop general rules and best practices for the application of online arbitration in Costa Rica.
Author: Anayansi Rojas Chan
On Friday, July 6, 2018, the final Master's paper entitled "Proposal to develop general rules and best practices for the application of online arbitration in Costa Rica" was defended and approved.
In contemporary society, the wide development of information and communication technologies has profoundly changed all areas of law. The research work focuses on the impact of technology on alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, specifically the domestic or national arbitration process. Arbitration is an alternative mechanism to the use of judicial means, which allows the parties to voluntarily submit their dispute to the decision of a neutral third party.
Information and communication technologies have profoundly changed all areas of law
In Costa Rica, the practice of arbitration has been concentrated in the capital area and is now practically non-existent in remote areas. The research work values the possibility of entering into online arbitration as a means of extending and enabling this mechanism to distant areas, so that it can be used by parties and legal advisors, avoiding the financial costs of travel and accommodation.
The research has as its starting point a broad concept of online arbitration that includes any process that is managed by an information management and electronic storage platform with Internet access. In this context, general rules are designed to comply with due process and good practices, aimed at reflecting and strictly safeguarding the changes that the use of technology presents in arbitration. It also discusses issues discussed with the local level, such as the validity of the arbitrator's signature with certified digital signature, the use of drones and the rules to ensure due process and immediacy in the evidentiary hearing by videoconference. With the purpose of implementing online arbitration in Costa Rica, the research proposes a set of general rules and best practices that can be adopted by the Conflict Resolution Centers that have an interest in entering this field. To this end, a study is made of the historical and international development of online arbitration, as well as the recommendations and work carried out by some of the institutions with the longest experience in the field of arbitration: the American Bar Association, the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law and the International Chamber of Commerce.
