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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 August 2009
In every society there is a wide range of alternatives for coping with the conflict stirred by personal disputes. Litigation is only one choice among many possibilities, ranging from avoidance to violence. The varieties of dispute settlement, and the socially sanctioned choices in any culture, communicate the ideals people cherish, their perceptions of themselves, and the quality of their relationships with others. They indicate whether people wish to avoid or encourage conflict, suppress it, or resolve it amicably. Ultimately the most basic values of society are revealed in its dispute settlement procedures.
— Jerold S. Auerbach, Justice Without Law? (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), pp. 3–4INTRODUCTION
The nature, structure, and operation of the institutions for dispute settlement of every society are an expression of its culture, its philosophy, its world view, as well as its mode of social, economic, and political organization. It is well known that in traditional China, mediation rather than litigation was the preferred means of dispute settlement in ordinary civil disputes among the people. The theory and practice of mediation have largely been shaped by Confucian philosophy. The system of mediation was also compatible with, and served well the needs of, the traditional society with its agrarian economy, kinship-based social structure, loose mode of central imperial rule, and emphasis on social stability rather than economic development.
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