Welcome

Victoria, British Columbia serves as the host city for the 2008 International Forum on Online Dispute Resolution.

This important conference will held at the Victoria Marriott Inner Harbour, June 18-19, 2008. The Marriott is also the host hotel. Other venues including Royal Roads University, and the Lester B. Pearson College of the Pacific on Vancouver Island The photograph is of Hatley Castle at Royal Roads University.

The Forum has as its purpose the bringing together of the world's leading practitioners, academics, theorists, and online negotiation application developers, to share information, and to create a vehicle for ODR education.

The Forum in Victoria will build on the research, applications and field development discussed at other international ODR meetings and workshops that were held in Geneva (2002 and 2003), Edinburgh (2003), Melbourne (2004), Bologna (2005), Brussels (2005), Cairo (2006), and Palo Alto (2007), Liverpool (2007) and Hong Kong (2007).

The Forum will consist of two days of plenary sessions and breakout sessions. The Forum brings together the world's leading practitioners, academics, students, and civil society to discuss the resolution of disputes using online technologies. These disputes may range from b2c (Business to consumer) to the prevention of human rights violations in conflict regions, to reconciliation of opposing groups in armed conflict, to disputes over intellectual property on the internet. It also brings together the leading technology developers who design conflict resolution platforms for use legal, commercial, or insurance related disputes (i.e. PayPal).

Keynote Speakers

The organizing committee notes that we have invited two special keynote speakers, Dr. Vinton Cerf, inventor of the Internet, (Please see: http://www.icann.org/biog/cerf.htm) and Dr. Jose Ramos Horta, Pax Nobel 1996 and President of East Timor (Please see: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1996/ramos-horta-cv.html). The presence of these notable persons on the world stage as our special guests indicates the importance and relevance of the Forum's deliberations. The keynote speakers will add their unique perspectives on the possible uses of technology and the Internet to resolve disputes and create peace.

Please look at our several webpages for the Forum, and continue to monitor this website for updates.

Media Contacts:
Jason Keenan
Media Adviser, ICANN
Ph: +1 310 382 4004
E: jason.keenan@icann.org