Images of Justice

Abstract

This Essay crystallizes core elements of the major dispute resolution processes: litigation, arbitration and mediation. The purpose is both to clarify essential characteristics of and the role of the neutral in each process and to identify the relation of those characteristics and that role to a conception of "justice." The piece explores whether certain shifts in process characteristics or the neutral's role (for example, arbitration that is not voluntary or a mediator adopting an evaluative orientation) so fundamentally change the particular process as to compromise its relation to a compelling conception of fairness and justice.