Legitimacy and the virtualization of dispute resolution.

For any type of institutionalized dispute resolution,legitimacy is a crucial characteristic,as legitimate dispute resolution promotes,for instance,general trust in state institutions and participation in economic activity.A lack of legitimacy will prevent the acceptance of dispute resolution,and thereby its use.Although many textbook definitions limit the meaningof legitimacy to legality,in its every-day use legitimacy is in fact a much broader concept.It encompasses different criteria relating to the nature of dispute resolution:is a form of dispute resolution properly embedded in a reliable institutional environment?,and:are its outcomes properly underpinned?Virtualization concerns the ways in which information and communication technologies affect administration,communication,accessibility and assessment.As an example of virtualization in dispute resolution,a scenario about on-line feedback is scrutinized.This scenario comprises the implementation of a feedback system to enable participants in an instance of dispute resolution to comment on various aspects of the dispute resolving process.