Online dispute resolution in Asia

Abstract

Asia is a rich and major continent that has excelled in the utilization of ICTs. Whilst many Asian States merit a mention, this chapter shall focus on China, Japan and India as major ODR players in the Asian continent. The choice of such three states is not only due to their international standing and weight, but also due to the progressive and accelerated development in the invention and implementation of ICT applications, which certainly impacts the development of ODR schemes.

On such account, the chapter shall be divided into three parts; each part shall be devoted to assess the status quo of ODR in one of the three distinguished states, which have three of the highest Internet and mobile phone usage rates in the world.

For example, China has emerged as one of the largest e-commerce giants with more than 457 million Internet users and 277 millions mobile phone Internet users. In Japan, a White Paper entitled “Basic IT Strategy”, released in August 2000 by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), has revealed Japan’s ambition to expand its IT infrastructure in support of not only the development of e-commerce, but the eventual implementation of e-Government initiatives.