Mandatory Mediation in the United States: Should It Be A Process in Thailand?

Abstract

Alternative Dispute Resolution or ADR is the mechanism which has been established to reduce the caseloads problem in court and to release the burden of costs and time for the parties that result from litigation. Mediation is one of ADR system that has significant role because it is the voluntary process that parties have a greater role in controlling the process and settling the consensual agreements by themselves with the assistance of neutral party. Even though most of parties in mediation process are satisfied with the outcome, the numbers of the cases that are mediated are not outstanding. In the United States, the low rate of the use of mediation came from many barriers for example, the partiesû lack of familiarity with the mediation. Therefore, the concept of mandatory mediation has developed to promote the massive use of mediation and to eliminate the barriers to mediation. Although, there are many benefits for mandating mediation there are many concerns about mandatory mediation. Consequently, many researchers in the United States have proposed the criteria for involved people to rely on before mandating mediation. This article is to study and analysis advantages, disadvantages and lessons learn from mandatory mediation system in the United States. The output of this study will be the ideas for Thailand to the introduction of mandatory mediation.

Abstract in Thai unavailable