2 Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Mechanisms in Nepal

The concept: resolving disputes through consent-based processes — party autonomy, speed, confidentiality, relationship-preservation (the virtues that matter in land disputes among familymembers — Nepal's property case's typical cast).The mechanisms:1. Arbitration (the Arbitration Act, 2055 (1999)): the binding adjudication by parties' chosen arbitrator(s) — the agreement's submission (the arbitration clause), the proceedings' informality, the award's enforcement (the court's recognition) and the narrow-setting-aside grounds; property arbitrability's practical breadth (boundary/valuation disputes the natural subject; the statutory-reform matters — ceilings, tenancy status — not arbitrable: public-law questions);2. Mediation (the Mediation Act, 2063 (2007), and the courts' mediation practice): the neutral facilitator's consensus-building — the mediation agreement's binding force once signed; the court-annexed mediation (the docketed cases referred to mediators at filing or during trial — the Civil Procedure Code 2074's institutionalization: the court's referral duty and the settlement's court-effect); the community mediation services (the justice-sector programmes' trained mediators — the land-and-family case's natural home);3. Conciliation and negotiation: the facilitated settlement's softer forms — the Malpot offices' and land-reform offices' settlement practice (the transactional disputes resolved at the registry counter); the community mediation at the ward/community level (the tol organizations' elder-settlement tradition — the customary justice the formal system increasingly absorbs);4. The statutory-adjacent fora: the judicial committees of the local governments (the rural/ municipality committees — under the local-government legislation, certain local disputes (small boundaries,…