Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 25th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview Main Conference Theme Author(s) Ursa Jeretina University of Vienna Vienna Austria Title Consumer Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) – as a Key Cultural Change - Mechanism for Innovative Public Administration in the EU File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Ursa Jeretina Abstract Every community (natural or virtual) will unavoidable experience change and conflict. Changes and conflicts can be in our daily lives very common, and may be deleterious or beneficial – whether you see a change as a conflict or a valuable lesson depends only on our prospective . Most commonly, lack of time for effective communication, lack of integration, uncertainty, a constantly changing environment, and increasing relationship complexity are the drivers of culture change and arisen of new conflicts. New conflicts, especially e-disputes, are the consequence of nowadays interaction through information and communication technology (ICT). Governments need to deal with the entire range of disputes in society, mostly on the area of consumer protection – whether under civil or administrative law. Important role for government and its e-governance is providing easy-use mechanisms to help resolve these small value disputes, which are arising out of e-commerce transactions. A wide range of goods and services are available on the Internet to consumer and businesses, but there is no truly adequate mechanism for legal certainty. In this emerging Internet era, Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) – so called online alternative dispute resolution (ADR) – potentially offers a useful set of tools and techniques for resolving disputes – both online and offline. Some Member states have already adopted or considering applicability of ODR platform as a tool for digital e-government, so ODR has already proved that it can provide effective resolution for at least some disputes, but unfortunately has not yet reached its complete potential. This paper evaluates the development of Consumer ODR system in European Public Administration, which through different scientific methods combines main positive (progress) and negative (problems) challenges. Special attention is paid to different barriers in the development of Consumer ODR structure, which are caused by translation and administrative dilemmas, as well as from legal gaps that occur in some Member states. Despite existing barriers, EU goal has been set – till the end of 2018 every Member state is obligated to introduce ODR platform in their (digital) legal system. The paper proposes the new European Regulation on the field of Consumer ODR and EU Administrative Law, which focus is consumer empowerment and efficient ODR mechanisms between EU entities with private or public interests. Good practices of efficient Consumer ODR structure can be seen as an added value to the Public Administration in EU. EU priority is to face challenges regarding supervision and financing ODR platforms, as well as translation problems and purely internal non-coherent (O)ADR system. The proposed future dynamics would encourage the use of successfully implemented ODR systems in European Public Administration as an efficient mechanism for consensual cultural change in the sense of innovative e-governance.
