A conciliação judicial de conflitos previdenciários envolve, em geral, uma proposta de acordo baseada na renúncia pelo indivíduo de parte dos valores do benefício em atraso em um processo no qual a decisão contrária ao entendimento do Instituto Nacional do Segurado Social (INSS) é muito provável. Como regra, há um notório desequilíbrio de poder envolvendo, de um lado, um litigante ocasional (indivíduo) e, de outro, um litigante habitual (INSS). O presente trabalho pretende discutir qual o papel do terceiro facilitador nesse contexto, de modo a legitimar a prática existente e avançar para uma mudança de paradigma. Para tanto, parte-se da tese de que a conciliação deve ser adequada ao conflito que se pretende tratar, cabendo ao terceiro facilitador atuar de acordo com as peculiaridades desse conflito. Desse modo, propõe-se que, para o tratamento do conflito previdenciário, o conceito de conciliador deve ser entendido em termos amplos, abrangendo não apenas o conciliador leigo, mas também o juiz conciliador e o Judiciário como conciliador interinstitucional. Embora cada uma dessas atuações possua características próprias, sustenta-se que o ponto em comum é o respeito a um devido processo legal mínimo que possibilite a existência de uma base adequada de poder e que permita, assim, a tomada de uma decisão informada pelas partes. Dessa forma, a flexibilidade instrumental própria da conciliação não impediria o estabelecimento de parâmetros mínimos da atuação do conciliador. Por isso, tendo como limite a tomada de uma decisão informada, o conciliador atuaria por meio de estratégias variadas, aproximando-se e distanciando-se das partes, com maior ou menor interferência, de acordo com as características do caso apresentado. Conclui-se que, com a atuação conjunta e coordenada das diversas espécies de conciliador é possível aprimorar qualitativamente a conciliação de conflitos previdenciários. / The court-connected conciliation (or evaluative mediation) of pension funds conflicts in Brazil involves, generally, an agreement in which the individual plaintiff waives part of a benefit in a lawsuit that the defendant, a national government agency called Instituto Nacional do Seguro Social (INSS), will probably loose. As a general rule, there is a significant imbalance of power between a one-shotter (individual) and a repeat player (INSS). The present work aims to discuss the role of the conciliator (or evaluative mediator) in this scenario, in order to legitimate the current practice and to allow a paradigm shift. Firstly, it argues that conciliation should be appropriate to the conflict to be resolved and that the conciliator also should act according to the peculiarities of this conflict. Therefore, it proposed that the definition of conciliator might be enlarged to cover not only the lay person who acts as a conciliator, but also the judge as a conciliator and the Judiciary as an interinstitutional conciliator. Although each specie has its own characteristics, it is argued that the common point is that all must try to guarantee the observance of a minimal due process of law which allows the existence of an adequate basis of power and thus enable parties to make an informed decision. Consequently, the flexibility of the conciliation rules would not prevent the establishment of minimum standards of the conciliator\'s performance. Limited by the aim to allow parties to make an informed decision, the conciliator would act through a variety of strategies. It means being close or far from the parties, interfering in a greater or a smaller level, depending on the characteristics of a particular conflict to be dealt. To sum up, this work concludes that, if the three species of conciliator work together in a coordinated way, it could be possible to have a qualitative improvement in the conciliation of pension funds conflicts.

Desde o ano de 2010, com a aprovação da Resolução n. 125 pelo Conselho Nacional de Justiça, os poderes públicos, em especial o Poder Judiciário, vêm incentivando o desenvolvimento de política pública, de âmbito nacional, para o tratamento adequado dos conflitos. Central para essa política é o incentivo aos mecanismos consensuais de solução de conflitos, da mediação e da conciliação, cuja implementação no mundo jurídico seria essencial para a transformação da mentalidade dos operadores do Direito e a superação da cultura da sentença pela cultura da pacificação. O presente trabalho investiga como vem ocorrendo a implementação dessa política pública, em especial quanto à transformação da mentalidade litigante dos operadores do Direito. Investiga-se se e como a Resolução n. 125 do Conselho Nacional de Justiça impacta e influencia a formação jurídica, o ensino do Direito, em especial do Direito Processual. Para tanto, parte-se da hipótese de que o desenvolvimento a contento da política pública de tratamento adequado dos conflitos, com a transformação da mentalidade dos operadores do Direito, não pode carecer de uma reestruturação mais ampla e mais profunda do ensino do Direito Processual. Após realização de pesquisa empírica com Faculdades de Direito conveniadas com o Tribunal de Justiça do Estado de São Paulo para a instalação de centros de mediação, conclui-se que a transformação cultural está longe de se verificar, voltados os convênios mais ao desafogamento do Judiciário do que a um aprendizado renovado dos estudantes de Direito. Sem a mudança do ensino jurídico, pouco será possível mudar na cultura da sentença. / Since 2010, with the adoption of Resolution n. 125 by the brazilian Conselho Nacional de Justiça (CNJ), public authorities, particularly within the Judiciary, have been encouraging the development of a public policy, nationwide, for the proper dispute processing. Capital to this policy is the incentive for the use of consensual dispute resolution processes, like mediation and conciliation, and these measures would be essential to the chance of the way lawyers act and think, when dealing with disputes. This research investigates how this policy is being enforced, particularly aimed at the transformation of the adversarial thinking of lawyers. It investigates if and how the Resolution n. 125 of the brazilian Conselho Nacional de Justiça impacts the legal education, particularly Civil Procedure. The initial hypothesis, for the public policy for proper dispute processing to actually change the thinking of lawyers, is that it is due a more deep transformation of Civil Procedure education. By a empirical research of the treaties among Law Schools and the São Paulo State Court for the setting of mediation centers, it is concluded that the legal cultures transformation is far from being. These treaties mean highly an answer for the crisis of the Judiciary, than a renewal of the law education. Unless the law education changes, the adversarial culture will not be overcome.

Direito processual civil, Mediação e conciliação, Reforma judiciária / The proliferation of individual claims repeating factual and/or legal matters have inspired procedural reforms aimed at the standardization of judgments, the consolidation of precedents and the collectivization of individual claims and searching for effectiveness and legal certainty. Another important response to this repeated litigation is the promotion of consensual dispute resolution, especially conciliation and mediation in the courts. This research investigates how consensual mechanisms are used by courts to deal with repeated litigation and which are the practices and techniques specifically aimed at repeated disputes. The characteristic elements of these repeated disputes are the similarity of the factual and/or legal arguments, the representativeness of the volume of claims and the fact that one of the parties litigates in similar disputes more often, while the other in involved in such type of cases only occasionally. These repeat players are known as the great litigants of the Judiciary, and enjoy certain advantages in terms of bargaining power, resources and information in view of their size and the frequency with which they are involved with similar cases. An empirical research was carried out court programs in Brazil and the United States to study the perceptions of the actors involved in the design and operation these programas on the issues raised. It was found that repeated litigation is a crucial part of court conciliation and mediation programs, influencing the role of the main stakeholders (parties, lawyers and conciliators/mediators), screening and case management practices, access conditions, specific techniques and the role played the Judiciary, who shall also act as manager, designer and institutional mediator. It is concluded that the structure of these programs and the role of those involved can be key factors for an adequate treatment of repeated disputes in the judicial context.

<p>The master thesis provides a comprehensive and comparative analysis of the scope of most-favoured-nation clauses, focusing on the application of such clauses to dispute resolution mechanisms in bilateral investment treaty’s (BIT).</p><p>The ICSID decision in Maffezini was the first in a series to extend the scope of an MFN clause to dispute resolution in such context. Traditionally, such a clause had been relied on regarding substantive rights. The debate evoked by this and subsequent decisions of arbitral tribunals, which often conflict with each other in their outcome and in their analytic methodology, illustrates the controversy of this issue.</p>

The master thesis provides a comprehensive and comparative analysis of the scope of most-favoured-nation clauses, focusing on the application of such clauses to dispute resolution mechanisms in bilateral investment treaty’s (BIT). The ICSID decision in Maffezini was the first in a series to extend the scope of an MFN clause to dispute resolution in such context. Traditionally, such a clause had been relied on regarding substantive rights. The debate evoked by this and subsequent decisions of arbitral tribunals, which often conflict with each other in their outcome and in their analytic methodology, illustrates the controversy of this issue.

University of Macau / Faculty of Law

University of Macau / Faculty of Law

To a large extent, natural phenomenon like earthquakes, floods, lanslides and etc may seem &ldquo / natural events&rdquo / which are out of human control. In fact, the sociopolitical structure is the main cause of earth tremors which turn into disasters. What is notable and striking is that, because of institutional and social vulnerabilities and little or misguided efforts for disaster loss mitigation, natural events may turn into disasters resulting negative and devastating consequences. Institutional vulnerabilities connote a lack of local administrations&rsquo / capacity for disaster mitigation planning, furthermore awareness for accreting local stakeholders for disaster loss reduction. Social vulnerabilities, refers to miss-knowledge and lack of awareness for disasters in the society. In Turkey, it is hard to say that there has never been efforts for disaster loss reduction, whereas / the main focus of the state agencies has been on post-disaster emergency relief, literally wound healing for decades. Generally speaking, localities which experience a disaster may encounter significant losses in development, hence a significant decrease in local capacities which takes enormous resources to restore. The housing stock and urban fabric, which inherit an historical background weaved by missguided disaster policy that only focus on post-disaster emergency relief phase, pictures the extent of the problem in Turkey. In addition, both &ldquo / institutional errors which lead to underachievement in disaster policy and practice&rdquo / and &ldquo / opportunities for building robust and resilient forms of institutions&rdquo / come into local agenda. Errors, which might have been altered by long term and comprehensive modes of local planning for disasters, may lead to underachievement by local agents. To achieve such a model, we are in need to carry out qualitative and quantitative data collecting and analyzing techniques in different phases. The two analysis techniques are in-depth interviews (IDI) and drawing Concept Maps that will be conducted in the analyses process with local respondents selected by snowball technique.

Interpretation of international law can vary from culture to culture. Pitman Potter is investigating new models that respond to these cross-cultural differences.

Le commerce électronique n'est plus un simple support promotionnel de la distribution des biens de consommation: il s'apparente de plus en plus à un marché parallèle à la distribution classique. Cependant, quel que soit le schéma emprunté, les rapports humains suscitent inévitablement des conflits et le commerce électronique ne fait pas exception à la règle. Ce nouveau vecteur n'a pas pour seule vertu le rapprochement des individus; de la même façon qu'il a affecté nos relations, il a eu un impact sur les litiges eux-mêmes. Le contexte particulier dans lequel s'inscrivent les transactions privées sur Internet, ont pour conséquence des litiges portant sur de faibles sommes d'argent et qui sont qui plus est - conditionnés par certains aspects techniques ou certaines particularités du monde en ligne. A cela s'ajoute une dimension internationale qui accentue encore la complexité du règlement des litiges, dans la mesure où elle implique pour les parties de délicates délibérations sur la question du forum et du droit applicable. La dispersion des parties ne facilite pas l'exercice de l'action en justice. Aussi l'arbitrage en ligne a-t-il pour ambition éthérée d'éluder la voie judiciaire et, plus encore, la voie judiciaire à l'étranger. La Toile, par la multitude de possibilités qu'elle offre, perturbe autant les repères de la justice classique qu'elle ne lui apporte des solutions jusqu'alors inexplorées. Par un recoupement de leurs caractéristiques, l'arbitrage fait ainsi écho au commerce électronique. En d'autres termes la gestion de la procédure arbitrale se fera à distance. Une attention toute particulière doit être accordée aux spécificités d'Internet et à l'impact que ce contexte particulier peut avoir sur le cadre traditionnel de l'arbitrage. La transition vers le monde virtuel ne se fait donc pas sans heurts. Si l'arbitrage en ligne est techniquement praticable, juridiquement il soulève nombre de questions. L'arbitrage classique exige de nombreuses conditions de fonds et de v fonnes que l'arbitrage en ligne par sa nature même ne peut totalement satisfaire. Malgré cette évidence, le droit, dans un souci de perfection et de maniabilité toujours plus poussé, tend peu à peu à passer outre cet écueil. Voilà ce à quoi nous essaierons de répondre modestement au travers cet exposé. / E-Commerce is no longer a channel in support of the standard fonu of trading consumption goods. It has become an alternative trading market for those consumption goods. However, whether trade takes place through e-trading or more traditional ways, human relationships are likely to entail conflicts. As a new fonu of trading, e-commerce fostered and strengthened the relationships between individuals, inc1uding lawsuits. Nonetheless, the types of lawsuits related to e-commerce differ from those related to the standard trade in several ways. For example, lawsuits related to etrading often involve relatively limited amounts of money because of the particular context in which trade takes place through the internet or some technical aspects of it. In addition, the international dimension of the trade further complicates the settlement of litigation since it implies sensitive deliberations about the place ofjurisdiction and the applicable law. In this case, the difficulty in conducting the legal practice is exacerbated by the fact that parties are far apart. Consequently, online arbitration has the noble goal of eluding the legal process, especially abroad. The World Wide Web, through its numerous possibilities, raises questions on the references of the c1assical justice and proposes solutions in ways that so far were unexplored. Since they share many of the same characteristics, on-line arbitration is similar to e-trading-that is, the on-line arbitration process is made from distance. Overall, a very particular attention must be paid to the specificities of the Internet and to its possible effects on the traditional arbitration framework. For the arbitration, the transition of trade toward the electronic world has created lots of vii difficulties. While online arbitration is technically practicable, it raises many legal issues. Online arbitration cannot totally fulfill the numerous conditions of content and fonn that standard arbitration requires. Nevertheless, the Law, with its growing concern for perfection and adaptability, is progressively overcoming this difficulty. Those are the issue that we will try to address in this study. / "Mémoire présenté à la Faculté des études supérieures en vue de l'obtention du grade de Maîtrise en droit (LLM)"