Sustainable Justice Screening of Conflict Resolution Systems for Sustainability, and: How Does Restorative Justice Fit into the Picture?

Tijdschrift voor Herstelrecht 2012, nr 4, Dutch Flemish magazine for restorative justice

21 Pages Posted: 22 Feb 2013

Date Written: 2012

Abstract

This article is a supplement to the Working Document on Sustainable Justice http://ssrn.com/abstract=2210027 and the Explanatory Notes on Sustainable Justice http://ssrn.com/abstract=2210037. The article describes the author's experiment to make use of modern testing methods emerging in organizational and leadership development to assess the effectiveness and contribution to sustainability of conflict resolution systems. The author performed organizational culture tests to check effectiveness and sustainability support of mediation, specialized drug courts and that of adversarial court litigation. He compares the effectiveness of these systems with that of an ideal organizational culture. Assessment of the test results brings to light that sustainable conflict resolution systems including courts should apply a healthy management of competition and opposition elements in order to prevent conflicts from escalation and that courts should apply judicial power in a humanistic-encouraging manner. This happens in mediation, Drug Courts, Community Courts and the Australian Indigenous Sentencing Courts and in restorative justice, but not in common adversarial court litigation. The lack of an unambiguous organizational culture and common focus in adversarial court litigation imply that the organizational culture cannot effectively lead to outcomes that improve the quality of social environment and that if sustainable outcomes have been reached this is realized by personal engagement of the judicial officer in spite of the organizational culture of the system.

Organizational analysis provides, in conjunction with the concept of sustainable justice, starting points for constructive innovation initiatives both inside and outside of the justice system. The results obtained justify the assumption that integration of restorative justice elements in the justice system will contribute to improving the extent to which justice contributes to the quality of society.

Keywords: justice, sustainability, innovation, transparency, Therapeutic Jurisprudence, problem solving courts, restorative justice, non adversarial justice, retribution, ecology, organizational culture, mediation, alternative dispute resolution

JEL Classification: C10, K10, K30, K32, K40, K41, K42, M14, M54, N40

Suggested Citation

de Savornin Lohman, Alexander Frederik, Sustainable Justice Screening of Conflict Resolution Systems for Sustainability, and: How Does Restorative Justice Fit into the Picture? (2012). Tijdschrift voor Herstelrecht 2012, nr 4, Dutch Flemish magazine for restorative justice, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1879951

Alexander Frederik De Savornin Lohman (Contact Author)

Center for Sustainable Justice ( email )

Netherlands
+31.30.2333015 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://www.sustainablejustice.org

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