The literature on Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) has argued for the general advantages of courts’ providing mediation services. However, courts’ involvement in mediation cannot always be justified by those advantages, unless (1) the mediation process is a consensual procedure based on party autonomy and (2) where the initiation is mandatory, the courts’ allocation of cases is justified both by the public interest and a case selection system. In this context, this article empirically tests whether the established arguments from ADR theory can be applied to justify all Chinese court-annexed mediation practices. This study provides a negative answer, owing to the fact that some Chinese court-annexed mediation practices found in the fieldwork aim mainly at clearing dockets and achieving case management for the courts’ organizational interests. Offsetting the advantages, those Chinese court-annexed mediation practices prevent disputants from gaining access to the official adjudication procedure.

Through an empirical study of the state-sponsored community mediation programme in Sri Lanka known as Mediation Boards (MBs), this paper examines this local-level mediation as a hybrid practice. Established as an Alternative Dispute Resolution mechanism, the MBs were initiated as a more effective and efficient alternative to the formal courts for local and minor disputes. In the case-study conducted on an MB, it was found that there is extensive replication of formal legal procedures alongside the mediators’ own cultural interpretations of disputes. By locating this hybrid practice theoretically within the framework of legal pluralism and its broad definition of law, an attempt is made to expand the scope of the pluralistic nature of law not only to include alternative forms of law, but also to understand the dynamic interactions between multiple normative orderings.