Dr. Pablo Cortes

Abstract:

This paper reviews the largest marketplaces from the Dark Web, which have become a haven for illegal activities—ranging from drug sales to cybercrime—and unearths their dispute avoidance and resolution mechanisms that aim to increase trust in these dark markets. Illegal trading on the Dark Web owes its success from the enhanced security and transparency as well as for effective dispute resolution processes, which are unreviewable by traditional courts. The dispute system design of these processes include anonymity, informality, user-support, community involvement in decisions, adherence to transaction terms and dark market rules, encrypted communications, and blockchain-based enforcement. While these processes lack due process guarantees and are often skewed towards experienced vendors, they are very effective, transparent, and incentivise parties to settle. The paper discusses the adaptability of civil justice principles in these unregulated digital spaces, which ironically undermine the rule of law by fostering trust in illegal transactions and offers insights into how these innovative processes can inform the development of more robust online dispute resolution systems within the legal system.