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Possible Nicknames: aariba, aarbitrationa, a'arba
Assumptions: - All parties do what they agree to do.
- Non-aggression Principle is in play.
- Failure to follow 1 or 2 will result in ostrisization.
Summary: Think of this system as the "eBay" of arbitration. Agora Arbitration Action (Agora Arbitration Action Group) is the preliminary name for an open, free-market arbitration service. The ultimate purpose is to offer dispute resolution services consistent with voluntary human interaction. A side effect of dispute resolution is the ability to offer "web-of-trust" services. The web-of-trust is derrived from the outcome of public, successful, and completed arbitration cases. If two parties approach the service for arbitration, get a decision, then all parties honor the decision, all parties gain trust of one another. Further, if the decision is a public affair, outside parties can reference it for deciding other disputes and/or other trust situations, if this is valuable to the market. Thus, statements like, "I trust Bob because he is my arbiter," or, "I trust Wendy because she honored an agreement we took to arbitration," become forms of endorsement (depending on the situation), similar to how an eBay customer will endorse a particular seller.
The overall system is designed from the beginning to be able to splinter and join with little or no effort.
Checks/Balance:
The ultimate check/balance is that this system is 100% voluntary. If an accused party does not like this system, they must be allowed to decline from using it. It should then be documented as a fact that the party has declined to use the system.
E.g. "Ely was accused of horse stealing but declined to go to arbitration with this system."
The accused may or may not wish to enter a reply. The party that declines one system should be able to offer another system or none.
If it seems like the party has declined from using the system, it may be interpreted as an act of guilt, but not always. To decline from a particular system could also imply doubt as to the fairness of a particular system.
Imagine a particular system is developed called Foo Arbitration. A small but growing group is unhappy with Foo because it uses the word "is" throughout the system, so they decide to design a system called Bar Arbitration that is based on Foo but is completely devoid of the use of the word "is."
When Foo changes to implement a new feature, Bar follows insofar as the new feature avoids "is." Bar is based on Foo, but fills a particular need. Foo users may bring Bar uses to arbitration or vis versa, and they may or may not agree to use ether's system.
Having the ability to opt out will put pressure on all systems to be fair and versatile. If an accused will ignore the request to come to arbitration, this could stands as an indictment of the accused by the accuser or an indictment of the system by the accused.
Of course, this particular interpretation is asymmetrical. The accused could be guilty and only avoiding the arbitration request because the evidence is too strong.
Goals:
- Define a general system of arbitration based on free market principles that can be implemented as software or in other modalities.
- Offer something like an online forum that takes evidence for mounting disputes for paid arbitrators to decide.
- Offer a way for users to advertise their services as arbitrator.
- Offer a way for users to look up other users to see if they are trustworthy.
- Allow the arbitration system itself to participate in other implementations of arbitration, whether they use the same standard or not.
- Offer evidence for trust between arbitration systems.
Terminology: - specification/spec - An arbitration system specification is a description or definition of how it is supposed to work. There can be more than one spec, but each one represents a different body of work. One spec can branch off from another and be somewhat compatible with one another. A spec can be designed from the ground up and be completely incompatible to another spec.
- implementation - An implemented arbitration system is based on a specification. Therefore, it is possible to have more than one implementation for a given arbitration system that compete in order to live up to the expectations of a particular specification.
- system - Synonym to implementation.
- case - A case is any dispute before the system that requires a decision.
- complete/completed/completion - A case that is complete is one that has no further actions pending. It is complete from the standpoint of arbitration, such that not even an appeal can be sought. A case is not complete until all parties agree it is complete. A case that is complete can no longer be appealed and cannot later be changed to being incomplete.
- settle/settled/settlement - A case that has been settled is where all parties have agreed they have been made whole (e.g. by reparations). Once a case is settled, it can also become complete, but not before. Thus, all complete cases are settled, but not all settled cases are complete. A case may be settled before it is complete so that an appeal can be sought in good faith.
Remember: Nothing here is set in stone. If a term is wrong or confusing, we can fix it.
Possible Use: - The primary use for this system is for/in real world dispute resolution. Prior to real world adoption, other uses may include ...
- Fictional discussion / Entertainment / Proof of concept use.
- Plug-in support for online gaming.
- As a more concrete proof of concept, online gaming companies can turn to this system, or similar implementations, to offer dispute resolution in online gaming environments. Some games are so complicated, they require the ability for players to put any issues between players up for arbitration (or perhaps even disputes between players and the gaming company) . But most game companies do not have the resources to devote this aspect to the game. Gaming companies who plug into a pre-packaged arbitration service would allow players to get this service in-game. Gaming companies could offer more than one arbitration service or lock the players into a single service.
- The system could be configured to allow players to offer services to each other in the game or opt only for arbitrators who do not play the game.
Stages: - Define an unfettered, open standard for arbitration that can be implemented by anyone in any form/modality or any language on any platform.
- Create a reference implementation on a particular software platform.
- Offer an API for access to pull/push information and do other "mash-ups" with the system.
- Profit!
This project may be prototyped from an existing PHP, Perl, or Rails based forum application. The main initial feature is to allow a discussion thread to be presented to and agreed upon by a mutual arbitrator. This arbitrator will review all of the posted evidence, then draw a conclusion based on anything he or she wants. The arbitrator's conclusion may or may not be based on the evidence. The arbitrator need not post rationale, but he or she may want to supply rationale to avoid appeal.
For example, the arbitrator may disclose that he or she would like to flip a coin to decide after the party has agreed to use this particular arbitrator. The "loser" may be unhappy that the evidence was totally ignored, thus move to the appeal process.
Appeal is paid for by the first arbitrator if he or she is overturned, so it is in all arbitrator's best interest to make a good rational decision rather than be capricious or use a coin toss.
Capricious or coin toss decisions would be limited to situations where arbitrators agree that the evidence calls for it, such that appeal could not overturn the original decision except in cases where an arbitrator approaches the case with some new rationale.
The "loser" could potentially keep the case settled and incomplete indefinitely, hoping an arbitrator would come along with a new rationale so it can be overturned. Or the parties could come to an agreement to complete the case after a certain amount of time has passed.
Initially, the project will take fictional cases, offer fictional trust, and deal in fictional compensation.
Law & Case Law:
In as much as it is up to the designer(s) of this system, United States (state/federal) as well as international law has been excluded from consideration in this system. It is essentially being ignored, as it is inconsistent with agorism. There is no need for arbitrators to use existing law or case law when coming to a decision in an agorist arbitration system. If an arbitrator chooses to offer services that pull from existing law or case law, it is up to that arbitrator to consider and disclose such information to his or her customers in order to have an arbitration agreement.
Dependencies:
GPG (The GNU Privacy Guard) can be used to cryptographically sign profiles and messages in this system. An interesting wrinkle in deciding to use GNU for any part of this system is that it exposes the system (or perhaps just the reference implementation of the system) to potential litigation.
FAQ:
Q: Is this all legal and binding? A: No.
Q: Then what keeps people from just taking the matter before a government court if they don't like what the arbitrator does? A: Not much. But then the trust between agorist individuals would be dealt a serious blow by such an action. Taking a matter before the government is itself a breech of trust between agorists. It would have been better not to arbitrate in the first place.
Q: Can corporations enter into this kind of arbitration? A: Yes. But doing so could expose the corporation to a myriad of additional accusations if the corporation is still taking favors from government. None of this is cast in stone either. It is certainly subject to change the more this is explored. |
