Legal Issues On Online Arbitration

Due to the increasing use of the Internet worldwide, the number of disputes arising from e-commerce, is on the rise. Traditional mechanisms of dispute resolution, including"bring the dispute to a court", are often inappropriate to resolve them; they tend to be time-consuming, expensive and raise the serious problems related to jurisdiction and enforcement. Hence the point of departure for the development of online arbitration consists in saying: conflicts arising online should be resolved online. Online disputes can be more effectively resolved with the use of arbitration when it takes advantage of diverse online techniques. However, some legal obstacles should be removed before this kind of online dispute resolution be accepted over the world. On the basis of the traditional arbitration theories, this article will mainly talk about it therefore.This article can be divided into five parts, and the main points are as follows: The first part above all gives an intruduction on the impact of internet and e-commerce made on mechanisms of arbitration. After that, the insufficiency of the traditional mechanism of dispute resolution is considered in connection with the unique character of e-commerce, Thus give birth to a new mechanism called online arbitration.The second part is about the nature of online arbitration. A defination is given by considering the outside aspect as well as the inside aspect of online arbitration. An analysis was made on the value inclination of arbitration and the difference between online arbitration and other ODR mechanisms in their nature, which leads to the conclusion that online arbitration should be final and binding.The third part concentrates on the issue of the"seat of arbitration". The'seat of arbitration'is the core of the international commercial arbitration system. It is the precondition of dealing with other issues arising out of online arbitration. In this part, besides discussing the the theory of denationalised arbitration, the author come up with the idea that the vacancy of the"seat of arbitration"shall be covered from a legal point of view, which has been proved by exploring the legal meaning of the"seat of arbitration".Part four concerns with the recognition and execution of online arbitration awards under New York Convention, 1958. This part was further divided into three parts. Sub-part one discusses the efficiency of electronic arbitration agreements and tries to figure out how it would be recognized under New York Convention. Sub-part two pays attention to the question that whether the due process request in New York Convention was fulfilled by online arbitration. Sub-part three focuses on the special issue of online arbitration on B2C disputes under the frame work of New York Convention.The last part of this article reveals the needs by our country to develop online arbitration. This part then gives some advises on developing appropriate environment for online arbitration when based on the current legal framework of our country.