A Comparative Study of the Enforcement of Final Documents in Online Alternative Dispute Resolution Methods

The increasing development of e-commerce and greater access to technological facilities have made online dispute resolution as one of the most important global legal topics. One of the most important aspects of any dispute resolution method is how the outcome of the dispute should be enforced, and traditionally the final dispute resolution documents are enforced by the national courts through the coercion of the loosing party. The possibility of enforcement of final documents resulting from online dispute resolution methods is questionable because all or part of the relationships between the parties and the dispute resolution authority is established online, and in many cases, current international and national regulations do not provide efficient rules for enforcement of said documents. For this reason, e-commerce legal activists have envisioned new ways to enforcement of final documents resulting from online dispute resolution methods. In this article, the enforcement of final documents resulting from online dispute resolution methods has been studied in two main topics: "Compulsory enforcement of final documents resulting from online dispute resolution methods" and "Voluntary enforcement of final documents resulting from online dispute resolution methods". Finally, the present study has concluded that the compulsory enforcement of final documents resulting from online dispute resolution methods through the intervention of national courts, even if there is a legal possibility, is not commensurate with the characteristics and requirements of online dispute resolution methods and the use of voluntary methods if the necessary related rules are established, can significant increase the overall validity of online dispute resolution methods by notably increasing the possibility of enforcement of final documents resulting from said methods and encourage parties and business activists to use these dispute resolution methods.