CTO launches ADR centre

Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation chairman Anthony De Bono launched the CTO's Alternate Dispute Resolution Centre on Thursday at a press briefing.

Earlier, the CTO chairman, accompanied by the CEO Dr Ekwow Spio-Garbrab and corporate secretary Dr Lasantha De Alwis hosted Commonwealth Foreign Ministers to lunch at the Westin Dragonara Resort, St Julian's.

Mr De Bono said disputes could arise in any area of our lives, in the workplace, the neighbourhood, school, business, and in families. Some of those disputes escalated to the point at which one side or the other looked to the court system for resolution, by starting a lawsuit.

On realising the limitations of litigation, such as time taken, cost involved and, most importantly, the tendency to ruin ongoing business relationships, professionals from a variety of backgrounds have collaborated to develop processes for resolving disputes outside the court system.

These processes are known collectively as 'Alternative Dispute Resolution', or simply ADR. Today the developed world uses ADR extensively to resolve anything from commercial disputes to matrimonial disputes, Mr De Bono said.

The most commonly known ADR processes are arbitration and mediation. However, other forms of ADR, including early neutral evaluation, adjudication and negotiation are gaining ground. There is no one-size-fits-all solution.

Provided the most appropriate technique is used, any of these ADR processes can be far more effective in resolving disputes, and they generally can do so confidentially, faster and more economically than through a lawsuit.

Dr Spio-Garbrah said that the telecommunications and the wider ICT sector has recently gone through tremendous changes consequently to which disputes in the sector have also increased both within countries as well as across boarders.

The increasing trend in privatising the previously government-owned telecommunication companies opening up the telecommunication market to domestic competition and foreign investment, leading to an exponential growth of ICTs and blurring of national boarders due to the nature of ICTs have all contributed to this phenomenon. The CTO governing council identified at its meeting in September 2004 in Sri Lanka that these disputes have a severely negative impact on the development of the ICT sector and, guided by its mandate to help bridge the digital divide, decided to set up an alternate dispute resolution centre to serve the ICT market of the Commonwealth.

With the preliminary work finished, the CTO Council, chaired by Mr De Bono, last September formally set up the CTO ADR Centre through what is coined the 'Yaoundé Declaration'.

Dr De Al-wis said the CTO ADR Centre will operate from London and will not duplicate the work of existing ADR service providers. Rather it will partner recognised leaders of ADR services to bring the best practices in ADR of the developed countries within the reach of developing countries on economical terms.

At their core, these services are intended to make efficient and less expensive the entire process by which ICTs can be rolled out to whole populations, enabling countries to achieve their Millennium Development Goals more promptly.

The CTO ADR Centre seeks to put the parties to a dispute in control of their destiny. They will control the mechanism to resolve their dispute. Moreover, it will save time and legal expenses, ensure confidentiality of the issues between the parties and the dispute, and most importantly preserve working business relationships, allowing parties to interact meaningfully while the dispute is being resolved, and even afterwards.

Mr De Bono said the CTO brings with it a 100-year-old history of effective engagement with the ICT sector and an internal competency of deep industry knowledge.

Its linkages with governments, independent ICT agencies, international organisations and ICT operating companies is a unique strength that will be leveraged to add more value to the ADR service. The CTO also has strong relations with technology providers, which will further enrich the ADR services and enlarge its access around the globe.

Both Mr De Bono and Dr Spio-Garbrah expressed their optimism on this development. They said the CTO ADR Centre will assist parties to select the most appropriate ADR technique, depending on the parties and issues involved.

The portfolio of techniques on offer includes negotiation, assisted negotiation, mediation, adjudication, early neutral evaluation and arbitration. More importantly, this service will assure an equitable solution to ICT-related disputes anywhere in the world, including developing countries, encouraging investments and trade in ICTs, regardless of limitations in legal systems.

The net result is strengthening the Commonwealth Action Programme on the Digital Divide, which was a key point of last week's deliberations.

This will be one of the major contributions of CTO to the CHOGM objective of Networking the Commonwealth for Development by adding a critical building block to the business environment that encourages the wider use of ICTs.

Following the setting up of the CTO ADR Centre, further evaluation will be made by the CTO's executive committee to see whether it would be feasible and advisable to embark on backward linking with four other related services: dispute management, dispute prevention, performance monitoring and contract negotiations.

In this way the CTO will have set up a seamless Transaction Management Model designed to develop the ICT sector within the Commonwealth so that the benefits of ICTs pervade the length and breadth of the common family that is the Commonwealth.

For more information visit www.cto.int