Coordinating International Trade and Human Rights as an Innovative Approach to Cross-Cultural Dispute Resolution

Abstract

In recent years, globalisation has fostered ever more frequent and intimate interactions between states and societies in the Asia-Pacific region. Unfortunately, this has also increased the potential for disputes, particularly regarding international trade and human rights. The Asia-Pacific Dispute Resolution Program, which is run jointly by the Institute of Asian Research and the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia, seeks to better understand, explain and predict when such disputes will arise, combining stateof-the-art approaches from law, political science, communications, sociology, international relations, economics and business. To manage-and ideally prevent such disputes, the world is in urgent need of resolution approaches that meet the needs and expectations of the different cultures involved. The objective of the Program is to propose innovative interdisciplinary approaches to dispute resolution that international communities of scholars and policymakers can use to promote intercultural communication and reconciliation.