Symposium

Listening to the World: New Ideas for Resolving Identity-Based Conflict
January 26, 2006 | Saxbe Auditorium, The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law

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In the United States, we turn to courts, administrative agencies, and the political process to resolve social problems. However, significant conflicts related to race, ethnicity, religion, and class often remain unaddressed. This symposium will bring together interdisciplinary scholars from around the world to generate new ideas for building United States institutions that are responsive to such conflict. The symposium will use social problems implicated by police-community relations as a case example to refine and expand our understanding of the possibilities of dispute system design.

The first portion of the symposium will provide an overview of the techniques, goals, and social effects of comparative dispute system design and a sketch of police-community relations in the United States. During the second portion, an interdisciplinary panel will discuss how conflict resolution mechanisms might address conflict that arises in the context of domestic police community relations. In the third portion, scholars from South Africa, Israel, and Northern Ireland will share insight and innovation based on experiences in their home countries.

The symposium will conclude with Dean Nancy Hardin Rogers moderating a discussion between dispute resolution experts and the domestic and international community panelists. Through this valuable opportunity, we hope to identify important lessons, gaps, and questions for both comparative dispute system design and dispute resolution institution-building within the United States.

The Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution, in collaboration with a new research initiative-The Bridge Initiative @ Mershon and Moritz: New Ideas for Bridging Divided Communities which is sponsored by The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law and the Mershon Center for International Security Studies-is privileged to host this symposium. We hope that you will join us in Columbus, Ohio to participate in this event, as your voices are especially vital to our goal of better addressing identity- and community-based conflict. All symposium papers will be published in Volume 22, Issue 1, of the Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution, scheduled for publication in the fall of 2006.