Hot Springs Research Institute of Kanagawa Prefecture
21st Century New Jurisprudence A System of Institutional Evolution Chapter I: The Essence of Law and the Definition of True Jurisprudence Chapter II: Foundations of Jurisprudence — The Co-Evolutionary Theory of Procedural and Substantive Justice Chapter III: Mechanisms for Integrating Jurisprudence with Social Governance Chapter IV: How Legal Rules Transform the National Economy Chapter V: Unifying the Art of Reform with Legal Provisions This system proposes that law is fundamentally a teleological order whose legitimacy derives not from procedural completeness but from its capacity to realize substantive justice — the protection of life, liberty, and human flourishing. It diagnoses contemporary institutions through the "diagnosis-treatment-construction" triad, identifying structural violence embedded in healthcare monopolies, cryptocurrency markets, and sports governance as pathologies that invert means into ends. Procedural justice, left uncoupled from substantive purpose, self-accelerates into illegitimacy through cumulative distortion, feedback failure, and legitimacy erosion — a pattern confirmed by comparative history from Qin to Rome to modern America. The remedy is institutional self-calibration: sunset review, independent fact-finding, audit-based compensation, and rapid correction channels that keep law tethered to its teleological anchor. Reform proceeds through a four-phase roadmap balancing synchronicity (preventing regulatory arbitrage) with sequential constraint (avoiding systemic overload), guided by 31 diagnostic conditions that tie every provision to a specific pathology and cure. The underlying logic unifies healthcare's five therapeutic mechanisms, cryptocurrency's six-dimensional governance framework, and cross-border regulatory alignment under the "shared loss principle" — ensuring risk-creators bear costs, not society. Law's ultimate aim is not to protect capital's freedom but to expand individuals' substantive freedom, making the economy serve comprehensive human development. In an era of AI adjudication, digital assets, and ecological crisis, this jurisprudence demonstrates that institutional evolution — the continuous rebuilding of the causal chain between rules and their purposes — is the only reliable path to steering civilization toward life, liberty, and prosperity.
Marcos Roberto Costa, Livia Costa, Alexandre Eli Alves
Este artigo examina os requisitos mínimos de criação, preservação, disponibilização e contestação da prova digital na autocomposição online de conflitos decorrentes de contratos de curta estadia intermediados por plataformas. A existência de capturas de tela ou de um canal digital, por si só, não torna o procedimento adequado. Sustenta-se que a autocomposição exige uma governança probatória capaz de assegurar proveniência, integridade, contexto, completude, acesso contraditório, minimização de dados e responsabilidades transparentes. A pesquisa é qualitativa, aplicada e propositiva. Combina procedimentos bibliográficos e documentais, método jurídico-dogmático de orientação funcional e design science jurídico como protocolo complementar. O corpus temático reúne 40 obras integrais auditadas - 32 brasileiras e oito estrangeiras -, articuladas à legislação vigente e a precedentes do Superior Tribunal de Justiça. A análise reconstrói a arquitetura triangular da contratação, distingue qualidade probatória de certeza absoluta, delimita as garantias da resolução online de disputas e testa o artefato em cenários hipotéticos. O resultado é um Protocolo Mínimo de Prontidão Probatória organizado em sete camadas, cuja intensidade varia conforme o risco, sem transformar ata notarial, hash ou blockchain em requisitos universais. Com isso, o debate se desloca da admissibilidade posterior de registros isolados para a organização preventiva, contestável e protetiva da informação necessária ao acordo.
Abstract With rapid urbanization and expanding infrastructure, construction contract disputes are increasing in volume and complexity, challenging traditional adjudication. This study proposes a domain-specific legal artificial intelligence (AI) system for construction contract disputes via hybrid knowledge integration based on the retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) paradigm, integrating five core legal texts and 500 adjudication cases within a dual-engine architecture. The knowledge base encodes legal concepts, relations, and rules to enable structured semantic inference. The DeepSeek-R1 reasoning engine analyzes case facts and legal logic via constrained generation, while the BGE-M3 retrieval module matches legal provisions and precedents using multivector indexing. A tripartite evaluation framework—semantic similarity, legal provision citation accuracy, and issue prediction F1 score—validates system performance. The hybrid knowledge model outperforms single-source models, achieving scores of 0.736, 0.952, and 0.937, respectively, while significantly reducing judicial document generation time. This study offers a theoretical and empirical basis for legal AI in Chinese construction disputes, demonstrating how integrating diverse legal knowledge enhances intelligent judicial assistance within China’s jurisdiction. It also provides a scalable methodological reference for the advancement of smart justice, with explicit recognition of its current jurisdictional limitations.
Electoral conflicts continue to pose a danger to the consolidation of democracy in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. Efforts to resolve conflicts is often criticised as the use of conventional dispute resolution procedures are proving to be cumbersome, expensive, opaque and logistically challenging, all of which erode public confidence in election results. The study seeks to design and validate an integrated e-technology framework that enhances the speed, accessibility and credibility of electoral dispute resolution in SADC by aligning legal reforms with digital tools for filing, evidence management and adjudication. Six SADC member states were purposively selected: Zimbabwe, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Mozambique and Mauritius. Selection was based on, firstly, electoral dispute history: all six have experienced post-election litigation 2018-2025, ensuring relevance; secondly, digital variance: South Africa and Mauritius represent high digital readiness per ITU ICT Development Index 2024, while Malawi and Mozambique represent low infrastructure contexts, strengthening transferability; and finally legal diversity in all six. This study used primary data collected through 150 structured surveys of IT experts and officials across the six countries, 75 key informant interviews (KIIs) with judges and national elections commissions (NECs)/electoral management bodies (EMBs) legal officers. Secondary data included electoral court judgments 2018-2025, observer reports, SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections 2021 and national electoral acts to map legal gaps. The results also show that an integrated e-technology framework can minimise the cost of pursuing electoral justice by 42% on average, improve access for rural litigants by enabling mobile filing, promote transparency through real-time case tracking and reduce median case resolution time from 112 days to 38 days in pilot simulations. The proposed framework integrates four interlocking components, namely blockchain[1]based evidence preservation, e-filing and case management portals, virtual hearings, online mediation platforms, and open data dashboards. The study concludes that while digitalising electoral fairness in SADC is both essential and feasible, institutional and political shortcomings cannot be addressed by technology alone.
As the world is witnessing the emergence of Metaverse, which is an immersive decentralised digital environment, there has been a sudden rise in unprecedented cross border economic and social activities which has facilitated transactions through the medium of virtual goods, NFTs, digital avatars and user generated content. This shift deviates from the conventional definition of Intellectual property and hence presents a notable threat in the territorial and national legal systems that is built on the roots of these grundnorm leading to substantial jurisdictional and enforcement gaps. This paper adopts a systemic literature review method by blending academic research, legal precedents, and policy documents to put forward how the core concepts of metaverse like user anonymity, decentralized blockchain structures, instantaneous duplication of digital assets, and borderless virtual economies unsettle the framework of traditional frameworks of intellectual property. With the help of comparative analysis of landmark case like Hermès International v. Rothschild, Nike v. Stock X, and Juventus F.C. v. Blockeras, the study puts forward the different challenges that the modern-day courts are facing in tackling with emerging virtual disputes while implementing the copyright and trademark doctrines. The paper further delves into the efficiency of international agreements like TRIPS and the Berne Convention in underlining the dispersion in global regulatory services. Alongside problem identification, this paper also proposes a hybrid framework that would bring together blockchain verification, cryptographic rights management, AI-based monitoring, legal harmonization with the help of model treaties and statutory reforms accompanying decentralised arbitration mechanisms. The study concludes that effective, equitable, and sustainable IP enforcement in the metaverse requires coordinated international cooperation, collaborative multi-stakeholder governance models balancing robust IP pr...
Open access
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Law, AI, and Intellectual Property
Dispute Resolution and Class Actions
Legal, Health, Environmental and COVID-19 Challenges
This article examines whether the procedural framework of the Federal Tax Ombudsman (“FTO”) in Pakistan, established under the Establishment of the Office of Federal Tax Ombudsman Ordinance, 2000, to adjudicate complaints of maladministration arising under federal fiscal statutes, may be strengthened through the integration of Kleros, a blockchain-based crowdsourced dispute resolution mechanism. Drawing upon an original empirical dataset of one hundred and twenty-four cases registered between January 2023 and February 2025, the article finds that the average resolution period of cases before the FTO is approximately 191.3 days, rising to 503.3 days for complex matters that traverse review, representation, and remand, whereas the Kleros mechanism resolves disputes in an average of 13.23 days across 2,111 adjudicated cases. The article also situates its findings within institutional economics, identifying the FTO as a hierarchical governance structure and the Kleros mechanism as a market-based alternative. It views the difference in resolution times as a measure of transaction costs for taxpayers and administration. By measuring these costs, the article depicts that a market-based adjudicatory system significantly reduces them, enhancing institutional efficiency. It provides empirical evidence, illustrating the welfare gains from institutional substitution in transaction cost economics and institutional change. Against this benchmark, three integration models are proposed, namely a hybrid concurrent fact-finding model, a delegated crowdsourcing model with conditional executive review, and an amicus curiae model for technically complex matters such as the taxation of digital assets, each anchored in the updates introduced under Kleros V2, including Soulbound Tokens that enable expert-gated juror selection. The article identifies two structural gaps that necessitate reform, namely the revolving-door capture within the FTO secretariat and the jurisprudential bottleneck created at the Presidential secretariat following the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. It concludes that phased, pilot-based integration, commencing with the amicus curiae model in respect of complex subject-matter complaints, is jurisprudentially defensible, economically efficient, and operationally feasible within the legal framework of Pakistan.
Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) raise fundamental questions for private law. While scholarly and regulatory attention has primarily focused on the legal status and governance of DAOs, comparatively little consideration has been given to how disputes involving these organisations should be resolved. This article examines the suitability of dispute resolution mechanisms for DAO-related disputes. Analysing the principal categories of disputes that have emerged in practice, the article critically evaluates blockchain-based dispute resolution mechanisms alongside traditional arbitration, in light of due process, enforceability, party autonomy, and the unique features of decentralised governance. It argues that neither purely code-based dispute resolution nor conventional litigation provides a satisfactory response to the complexity of DAO disputes. It concludes that arbitration, appropriately adapted to the technological and organisational realities of DAOs, offers the most promising framework for balancing decentralisation, legal certainty, and procedural fairness within the evolving Web3 ecosystem.
The emergence of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) as a novel digital asset class has precipitated significant legal uncertainty across multiple jurisdictions. Unlike fungible cryptocurrencies, NFTs encode uniqueness and provenance on distributed ledger technology, yet existing legal frameworks — conceived for tangible property, intellectual creations, and financial instruments — have proven inadequate in determining their precise legal character. This article engages in a rigorous comparative legal analysis of the legal status of NFTs in Uzbekistan, the European Union, and the United States of America, examining how each jurisdiction has — or has failed to — accommodate NFTs within property law, intellectual property law, securities regulation, and consumer protection frameworks. A central concern of the article is the application of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) mechanisms — including arbitration, mediation, and online dispute resolution (ODR) — to NFT-related conflicts. The article identifies critical lacunae in domestic and international legal frameworks and proposes concrete legislative reforms tailored to the Uzbek legal context, while drawing on best practices from comparator jurisdictions. The study concludes that regulatory clarity, combined with adaptable ADR infrastructure, is essential to foster a secure and equitable digital economy in the Republic of Uzbekistan and beyond.
The emergence of blockchain technology has fundamentally transformed the architecture of trust, transparency, and enforcement in legal transactions. By enabling decentralized, immutable, and cryptographically verifiable records, blockchain challenges traditional legal institutions that have historically relied on intermediaries such as courts, financial institutions, and regulatory authorities to establish trust and validate transactions. In this evolving digital ecosystem, smart contracts—self-executing agreements embedded in blockchain code—further redefine contractual relationships by automating performance, reducing transaction costs, and minimizing the need for human intervention. This article critically examines the legal implications of blockchain and smart contracts, with particular emphasis on their impact on foundational principles of contract law, mechanisms of dispute resolution, regulatory compliance, and evidentiary standards. It interrogates whether algorithmic execution can adequately substitute for legal interpretation and equitable considerations traditionally exercised by courts. Additionally, the article explores persistent challenges, including issues of enforceability, jurisdictional ambiguity in cross-border transactions, technological vulnerabilities, and the rigidity of coded agreements. While blockchain technology promises increased efficiency, transparency, and security in legal transactions, it simultaneously raises complex questions regarding legal accountability, allocation of liability, and the adaptability of existing legal frameworks. The analysis underscores that uncritical reliance on technological solutions may undermine core legal values such as fairness and justice. Accordingly, the article concludes that a hybrid legal approach—integrating technological innovation with established doctrinal safeguards and regulatory oversight—is essential for responsibly shaping the future of legal transactions in an increasingly digital society.
Caio Vinícius Sousa e Souza, Paulo Sérgio Velten Pereira
A Justiça brasileira encontra-se sobrecarregada, ineficiente e incapaz de lidar com a crescente litigiosidade, especialmente frente aos desafios impostos pela era digital. A emergência de disputas oriundas de relações tokenizadas, contratos inteligentes e transações em blockchain exige uma reformulação nos meios tradicionais de resolução de conflitos. Nesse contexto, o presente artigo analisa a viabilidade e os limites das cortes descentralizadas em redes blockchain como um novo modelo de acesso à justiça. Parte-se da constatação da crise do modelo estatal centralizado e da necessidade de um sistema de justiça multiportas, no qual se integram mecanismos extrajudiciais, plataformas ODR (Online Dispute Resolution) e, mais recentemente, estruturas decisórias distribuídas em DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations). A partir da análise de experiências internacionais, como a legislação mexicana de 2024, e de fundamentos técnicos da tecnologia blockchain, sustenta-se que as cortes descentralizadas podem funcionar como vias eficazes para resolução de conflitos de baixa complexidade. Ainda que limitadas quanto à tutela de direitos subjetivos densos, essas plataformas podem aliviar significativamente o sistema estatal, tornando-o mais célere e eficiente. O estudo propõe, assim, uma reflexão sobre a reconfiguração da jurisdição no século XXI e o papel do Estado na regulação dessa nova arquitetura da justiça.
Purpose: This study analyzed Smart contracts based on Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), which offer new possibilities for automating and decentralizing the entire dispute resolution process—from filing and evidence preservation to arbitrator selection and the enforcement of awards. Research design, data, and methodology: These developments simultaneously introduce critical challenges in private international law, including determining the governing law, establishing the seat of arbitration, and ensuring the legal validity of awards within crossborder distributed networks. Results: This study classified and analyzed the types and technical characteristics of blockchain-based ODR. It evaluated the applicability and limitations of the Korean Arbitration Act (as amended in 2016) regarding transnational commercial disputes. Conclusions: This paper proposes legislative directions for the refinement of the Korean Arbitration Act and related frameworks through a comparative legal analysis of international norms—including the UNCITRAL Technical Notes (2017), the Hague Principles (2015), and EU ODR Regulations.
In a world where traditional governance structures creak beneath the pressure of borderless digital trade, the advent of stateless virtual economies-driven by blockchain and made real through Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) has set in motion a seismic change in the way that disputes form and are resolved. This essay breaks free of traditional paradigms to rethink Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) in a world governed not by states, but by a virtual world where everything is connected one way or another. Looking to the future of justice in decentralized systems, this paper explores the legal black hole DAOS inhabit today where no court has jurisdiction, no one country has authority. We look at how post-quantum cryptography and AI-informed legal design may be able to protect justice in a world where reality is fluid, and identities are cryptographically concealed. This is not just an academic treatise it is a roadmap for Decentralized Autonomous Justice (DAJ): a future where conflicts are settled by smart contracts, overseen by international consensus, and shielded from the quantum unknowable. It reimagines the standards of fairness, due process, and enforcement for a generation that grew up not in courthouses, but in source code.
The rapid digitalization of wealth in the form of cryptocurrency and virtual assets has dramatically transformed the results of the matrimonial conflicts and alimony payments. With the gr owing adoption of decentralized and pseudonymous digital assets as constituents of individual financial portfolios, family courts face new issues in their classification, disclosure, valuation, and enforcement. The legal issues discussed in this paper include the legal complications of cryptocurrency as marital property, the risk of concealing assets through blockchain anonymity, and challenges of valuation, associated with the excessive price volatility, tax exposure, enforcement challenges linked to the control of private keys, and jurisdictional challenges across borders. It also examines new legal and forensic systems and contractual protection mechanisms that are intended to manage these issues. The paper claims that although the classical tenets of equitable allocation and full disclosure are still underpinning, the concept of clarity in the law and judicial flexibility is needed to provide equal justice, openness, and enforceability of the divorce process concerning cryptocurrency and virtual possessions.
본 연구는 스마트계약에 전통적인 계약에 적용되는 현행법을 적용할 수 있는지 계약성립에 관한 쟁점을 중심으로 고찰하였다. Quoine Pte Ltd v B2C2 Ltd 사건에서 컴퓨터 프로그램에 의해 자동으로 암호화폐를 거래하는 것은 인간의 개입이 없더라도 법적 구속력이 있는 계약으로 판단하였으므로 스마트계약에서 발생하는 분쟁에도 현행법을 적용할 수 있음을 시사한다. 영국법과 민법상 스마트계약은 코드를 공개하는 청약과 조건의 성취를 위한 행위에 의한 승낙으로 성립됨을 인정한다고 볼 수 있다. 코드의 설계와 이행에 대한 착오는 영국법상 공통착오와 일방착오로 구분하여 계약의 무효 여부를 판단하고, 민법에서는 표시착오, 내용착오, 동기의 착오로 구분하여 착오로 인한 취소 여부를 판단해 볼 수 있다.
탈중앙화 금융(DeFi)·탈중앙화 자율조직(DAO)의 확산으로 책임 주체를 식별 가능한 조직이 전제인 전통적 규제체계에 발생하는 규제 공백에 대응하여 미국 연방지방법원은 DAO의 단체법적 지위와 책임 구조에 대한 법리를 제시하고 있다. 상품선물거래위원회(CFTC) v. Ooki DAO 사건에서 CFTC는 DAO를 캘리포니아 회사법의 비법인사단(unincorporated association)·상품거래법의 인격체(person)로 특정하여 소송 능력을 주장하였고, 캘리포니아 북부지방법원은 대체 송달·소송 능력을 인정하여 금지명령(injunctions) 등을 부과하였다. Sarcuni v. bZx DAO 사건에서 원고는 해킹으로 인한 이용자의 재산 손실 관련 DAO의 거버넌스·거래지원 추진·마케팅·수익 활동에 적극 관여한 설립자·개발자·벤처 캐피탈(VC)(‘핵심 이용자’) 등에 과실(negligence)을 원인으로 손해배상을 청구하였다. 캘리포니아 남부지방법원은 핵심 이용자 일부에 캘리포니아 회사법의 일반조합(general partnership) 성립과 조합원(partner) 지위의 개연성을 인정하여 조합원 공동·연대책임(joint and several liability)을 전제로 책임 구조를 검토하였다. Samuels v. Lido DAO 사건·Houghton v. Leshner 사건에서 캘리포니아 북부지방법원은 핵심 이용자 등에 증권법 §12(a)(1) 법정 판매자(statutory seller) 성립과 조합원 공동·연대책임의 개연성을 시사하였다. 이는 규제 공백을 해소하는 장점이 존재하지만, 조합원 범위의 모호성과 공동·연대책임이 생태계 위축을 초래할 위험성도 우려된다.<br/> 우리나라도 DAO의 단체법적 지위와 책임 구조를 시급하게 논의하여야 한다. ① 공동 목적·규칙·거버넌스·트레저리·지배 구조 기반 단체 DAO에 조합·비법인사단·회사 등 전통적 단체법을 적용하여 단체법적 지위와 책임 구조를 판단하여야 한다. ② DAO 토큰은 순수 유틸리티형 토큰·거버넌스 토큰·지분형 토큰 등 권리 구조와 실질적 지배·통제 권한에 근거하여 가상자산사업자 규율을 적용할 필요가 있다. ③ 중장기적으로 DAO 특례 입법을 통해 등록 DAO에 구성원 유한책임을 인정하고, 미등록 DAO에 불리한 추론을 적용하며, 법무법인·회계법인·VC·가상자산거래소 등 게이트키퍼 책임 모델을 설계하여 이용자 보호를 도모하여야 한다. ④ 발행인·판매자·서비스 제공자를 실질적 영향력과 이익 귀속을 기준으로 특정하고, 핵심 이용자 등을 책임 주체로 식별하며, 토큰 소량 보유자·수동적 이용자는 면책하는 등 책임 범위의 정교화가 요구된다.
The exponential rise of blockchain technology is changing the way organizations operate, including in enforcement. Standard means of conflict resolution whether through courts or arbitration/mediation bodies, regularly face questions of cost, delay, jurisdiction and transparency. One of the innovations in an online and global market can be the blockchain-based decentralized judicial systems, as a result of such limitations. Family law disputes as a case study for the indepth analysis of DDR Blockchain-based Decentralized Dispute Resolution (DDR) systems, and how they could disrupt justice delivery processes in future. Both such models allow people to work out their differences without or so much help from a central authority. They accomplish this using decentralized governance, distributed ledgers, cryptographic security, and smart contracts. Disputes are settled using transparent rules, automated policing and community-based judgment. Critical topics are touched upon simultaneously: the legality of the system, pitfalls of bad governance, challenges to its scalability, voting biases in token systems and ethical dilemmas raised by machine decision-making. Decentralized methods of justice, the study suggests, are unlikely to replace courts as we know them in the near future. Rather, they're promising as secondary solutions - especially in the Web3 world, for digital assets, online commerce, and cross-border transactions. Blockchain dispute resolution can revolutionize the industry of justice in a digital era. It takes away intermediaries on the way to good legal systems through technology. This will enhance the legitimacy, effectiveness and accessibility of dispute resolution for all stakeholders.
The rapid evolution of digital technologies has fundamentally disrupted traditional arbitration processes, introducing new complexities and opportunities at the intersection of blockchain technology, smart contracts, and online arbitration. This study examines the legal and practical challenges arising from the integration of blockchain technology, smart contracts, and online arbitration. The research addresses the problem of adapting traditional dispute resolution frameworks to decentralized automated agreements that transcend national borders. Using doctrinal analysis and comparative review of legal sources, case studies, and real-world platforms, the study identifies key types of smart contracts and evaluates on-chain and off-chain arbitration models. Findings highlight both the efficiency and transparency offered by blockchain-based dispute resolution, as well as persistent issues such as jurisdictional uncertainty, enforceability, technical vulnerabilities, and privacy risks. The results underscore the need for clear legal standards, technical safeguards, and the adoption of advanced technologies. The study recommends promoting interoperability, specifying governing law in smart contracts, and leveraging AI and off-chain execution systems to enhance the robustness and adaptability of digital dispute resolution.
Fragmented construction records prolong disputes and erode evidentiary confidence in international arbitration. This paper interrogates whether permissioned-blockchain ledgers can recalibrate that evidentiary calculus by embedding immutability, cryptographic authentication, and distributed consensus within project documentation. Methodologically, this study employs a doctrinal-comparative approach, examining the UNCITRAL model law, IBA rules on evidence (2020), and the FIDIC conditions of contract (2017), combined with a technical synthesis of permissioned blockchain architectures. The research demonstrates that blockchain-verified records satisfy admissibility, relevance, and weight thresholds while obviating conventional authentication burdens. Real-world pilots illustrate automated notice compliance and payment certification through smart contracts, revealing measurable reductions in cost and delay. A phased implementation framework details protocol selection, hybrid storage architecture, governance safeguards, and change-management strategies that mitigate interoperability, privacy, and stakeholder-alignment challenges. The findings characterize blockchain not as incremental digitization but as a jurisprudential inflection point capable of redistributing evidentiary risk and accelerating finality in construction arbitration. Consequently, industry adoption promises heightened transparency, equitable risk allocation, and globally harmonized dispute-resolution efficiency gains.
Abstract This chapter explores the application of the validity requirements of a choice of court agreement under the Hague Choice of Court Convention, Lugano Convention, and Brussels I Regulation in disputes involving decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), analyzing the legal implications of a choice of court agreement for the DAO, its members, and third parties. When DAOs are involved in a state court dispute, their blockchain-based nature raises numerous legal questions, including issues related to their legal status and their capacity to enter into binding agreements, such as a choice of court agreement. This reiterates the influence of the international context in which DAOs operate on state court dispute resolution, and emphasizes the challenges of locating DAOs in the physical world, highlighting the limitations of state justice for disputes involving DAOs. This analysis underscores how a choice of court agreement introduces a degree of predictability regarding the forum for civil and commercial claims.
Abstract Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) are a still-evolving organizational form. As such, they face unique challenges in dispute resolution. These challenges start with the definition of what constitutes a DAO dispute, compounded by the oftentimes pseudonymous identity of parties, the absence of traditional hierarchical structures, and opaque power dynamics. In addition, governance and operations are frequently—though not invariably—implemented using blockchain technology and smart contracts, adding further complexity. This chapter explores the intricacies of DAO disputes by attempting a definition and examining both internal conflicts and external challenges, outlining DAO-specific obstacles in dispute resolution and drawing from real world examples, including interviews with DAO practitioners. There is a clear need for DAOs to plan for disputes and establish clear rules and guidelines for dispute resolution (both on- and off-chain) from the outset.
The increasing complexity of international trade agreements and cross-border transactions necessitates efficient, transparent, and enforceable dispute resolution mechanisms. Traditional methods of conflict solving like litigation and arbitration bear many drawbacks including time-consuming, high costs and jurisdiction issues. As a result, blockchain technology has become the element that enhances the mechanisms for the effective implementation of international trade law instruments on smart contracts and decentralized dispute resolution (DDR) platforms. Due to the primary property of blockchain, by forming smart contracts, it is possible to reduce contradictions that may arise from contractual uncertainty, delay in enforcement, and breaches. The immutability of the record storage in the blocks facilitates the discouragement of contract breaches and the enhancement of the performance reviews instead of legal remand. In addition, blockchain removes the intermediaries thus offers reduce on legal expenses and enhance access specifically to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) who engage in international business. This paper aims at exploring the use of blockchain based smart contracts in the resolution of dispute as well as minimizing conflicts and improving legal certainty in international business.