This project is an empirical study of the use of judicial mediation in the Chinese legal system today. Judicial mediation has become increasingly prevalent in the past decade in China. Judicial mediation has become a model for resolving not just legal disputes, but broader, extralegal disputes. About the same time as judicial mediation returned to prominence in courts, China's party-state has begun to develop and push for the idea of 'grand mediation' as a mechanism for redressing administrative and social disputes. This project will analyze mediation in circumstances likely to occur in daily life, such as personal injury or family problems. In other contexts, the question has arisen whether mediation leads to outcomes consistent with legal rules. Therefore, it will contribute to understanding of the development and implementation of the rule of law. How does the rule of law develop? What relationship does its development have to changes in processes on the ground in China?
The project will rely on observation to study how mediation is carried out in several base-level courts in different parts of China. Researchers will observe how judges interact with litigants and persuade them to settle, and will also interview judges. The project will also analyze why some litigants agree to negotiate to a settlement and others insist on adjudication.
The study promises to get an in-depth, firsthand look at this practice central to Chinese civil justice. How should one evaluate the rise of mediation in China? Is it a form of constructive and less adversarial justice? Or is it a threat to the integrity of adjudication and thereby the development of the rule of law in China? They will shed light on how Chinese-style mediation is similar to or different from the communal or court-based mediation commonly found in the Anglo-American system. The widespread acknowledgment of the importance of the rule of law in China makes this project especially important.
The project has substantial broader impacts because the question of how the rule of law develops is important to policymakers and the development of transnational business. In addition, the project will contribute to training students in an area of profound importance.
