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Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

Abstract

In the forty years since Chief Justice Warren Burger and Harvard Professor Frank Sander offered new visions and challenges for the administration of American justice at the 1976 Pound Conference, a Quiet Revolution in "ADR" has altered the landscape of public and private dispute resolution around the world. Its impact has been felt in the empowerment of individuals to intervene more effectively in conflict of all kinds for the betterment of disputing parties, of institutions, and society at large. It has inspired multitudes of local, regional, national, and international initiatives and fed into diverse realms of discourse, including public engagement, organizational development, restorative justice, and faith-based diplomatic and collaborative law practice. Increasingly, it has been reinvigorated and even transformed by megatrends such as globalization, the revolution in information technology, and studies of brain science and human behavior.

Yet, four decades on, there are also tangible indications that the glass is only half full-that the Quiet Revolution has in some ways fallen short of the promise of its early days, or developed in unforeseen ways. Factors such as behavioral inertia and behavioral "drift," the strong "gravitational pull" of the legal profession, and the tremendous diversity of cultures and legal traditions have all affected the speed, shape, and direction of change in our ways of processing disputes. Looking forward, the accelerating technological tsunami is a Pandora's box likely to eclipse all other influences on human interaction, for good and for ill.

Being given the opportunity to offer this reflection on the first forty years of our modem focus on dispute resolution and conflict management is a special pleasure, because I and others of my generation have had the privilege of living and actively practicing throughout the Quiet Revolution. However, I am also aware that no individual has sufficient knowledge or experience to embrace more than a small fraction of the human activity that comprises the Quiet Revolution. I will therefore limit myself to identifying some salient trends and themes-the "parts of the elephant" that I am able to perceive-and positing some questions for the future.

Disciplines

Dispute Resolution and Arbitration | Law | Legal History

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