An Agent-Based Architecture for a Second Generation ODR Tool

As seen in previous chapters, there are currently many different commercial ODR service providers and research projects. It can also be concluded that these systems are rather specific, focused on a single domain, type of conflict or conflict resolution method. These factors constitute some of the reasons that hold back further or faster development of new ODR service providers. Indeed, single-domain or highly-focused ODR tools have markedly fewer potential clients, thus making them less appealing to investors and developers alike. This chapter addresses this specific issue by proposing an architecture that provides ODR services based on abstract concepts and processes: UMCourt. Indeed, many concepts and processes are cross-domain: they have the same meaning independently of the legal domain. They are, however, implemented differently. These different implementations should, nevertheless, be transparent to the users. The architecture described here achieves these objectives by implementing a hierarchic relationship between software agents in which higher-level agents have coordination tasks and lower-level agents implement domain-specific knowledge. The architecture has also the advantage of being easily extensible to additional domains without changes to existing agents.