Online Dispute Resolution Systems as Web Services

ODR systems can be considered to be a very specific kind of Web services, requiring the support of new types of communication adapted to dispute resolution processes (negotiation, mediation, and arbitration) and corresponding to security mechanisms such as integrity and confidentiality of data. The goal of this paper is to analyse the main characteristics that a coherent ODR system must fulfil, mapping the legal requirements to a structure of technical concepts. The authors also provide a technical modelisation of an ODR service by identifying the different actors and communication types used by these actors. The paper is organized as follows. We first give an overview of ODR systems. Then, we discuss some technical and particularly security requirements for ODR. Thereafter, we describe the modelisation of an ODR service based on a simple dispute resolution scenario.