KLEROS: USING BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY TO SERVE JUSTICE TO THE COMMON MAN
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There are approximately 7.442 billion people in the world as at 2016 Source. All these people have different characters, method of reasoning, belief systems, ideologies, and so on. Because of these differences, there is bound to be the presence of disputes.
Disputes in themselves are not bad, it is how we handle disputes that truly matters. It is the presence of these disputes that necessitated the birth and presence of the Judiciary system.
Disputes arise in different areas of life, ranging from personal relationships, business relationship, corporate world, religious world, and so on. As long as there are more than two people in an organization, there is the possibility for dispute to exist.
Knowing this, we therefore need a means by which we can attain justice, no matter how insignificant the bone of contention is.
As long as there is a justice system that is easily accessible and affordable, people will be able to live in peace and carry out their business deals rest assured that they will get what is due them.
We are grateful for the current Judiciary system, but truth be told, the cost of obtaining justice in this present time and age has been on the rise.
When you take into consideration the cost of hiring a lawyer for the duration of the case (especially when the value of the substance in contention is small), it will not be cost effective to hire one.
The three major challenges of the current Judiciary system are:
- High fees
High fees is one of the most dominant reasons why people avoid seeking justice. The average cost of hiring a lawyer is around $150 - $500 per hoursource. This rate is really high, especially for cases where the money under dispute is relatively small.
We can’t overrule the importance of a good and highly experienced lawyer in achieving the goal of winning a case, but services of such lawyers are usually very expensive, and would only be wise investment if the case at hand is a high profile case, where a huge sum of money is at stake.
However, when a smaller amount of money is at stake, such fees are too high and unreasonable. For example, a case where $1000 is under dispute, it would not be wise to pay a lawyer $150 per hour.
Also, with this current judiciary system, if one of the parties in the dispute can afford a good lawyer, while the other can’t afford one, automatically the scale of justice has been tilted.
There is a need for a judiciary system that is fair, one that not only makes access to justice affordable, but also provides a level playing ground for both parties involved in the dispute, irrespective of their individual financial capabilities.
- Delayed judgement
Another challenge with the current judiciary system is the issue of delayed judgment. A court case is not like reporting a fellow student to a class teacher and then getting the case settled in 5 minutes.
Court cases take some time. There is adjournment and re-adjournment.
Because of this delay, there is usually a list of cases that need to be addressed before any current case is settled. This delay means that people who are currently in a dispute have to wait for their turn to have their case listened to. Sometimes, these cases can be adjourned to a later date, further leading to more delays.
The more these cases are delayed, the more damage is experienced. For example, a case where perishable goods are involved, it gets worse the more the case is delayed.
There is a need for a judiciary/justice system where cases are handled as fast as possible. The system has to have as much jury as possible available to handle cases, hence curbing the issue of delayed cases.
- Bribery and corruption
This is one of the challenges associated with current judiciary system. When the judge in-charge of a case is known, the possibility of him being bribed becomes existent.
The Judiciary system is filled with a lot of people who are men and women of integrity, who have proven through time that they are people of honor. However, because these people are human, they are liable to fall especially when under pressure.
Some have been tempted to take bribes and act in corrupt ways, and were unable to resist such pressures. For example, in 2013, a Texas state judge was convicted for taking more than $250,000 in bribes in exchange for favorable ruling.Source
This shows the need for a system of justice where the possibility of handing bribes and performing corrupt practices have been reduced drastically.
The system should be one where the parties concerned in the dispute have no form of contact with the Jury, not knowing who they are or how to find them.
And even when they can be contacted, there has to be a mechanism to frustrate every form of advancement through bribery
Having considered the above challenges that the current Judiciary system faces, and how less efficient it is with handling cases of lesser financial value, there is need for a solution that can make justice affordable, easily accessible, speedily delivered, and corrupt free.
Kleros is a dispute resolution system built upon the Ethereum blockchain, having the format of a courtroom, and taking advantage of the smart contract feature of the blockchain technology, to provide a honest, easily accessible, and affordable judgement over disputes.
Kleros takes advantage of the knowledge and experience average people have in their various fields, giving them the opportunity to make extra cash by serving as Kleros jurors.
The Kleros system is designed with various mechanisms that enables it ensure transparency and fairness in the judgement process, with numerous protective mechanisms to keep manipulators away from manipulating judgement.
Kleros achieves this transparent and fair judgement through the three pillars of Smart contract, Schelling coin mechanism & appeal system, and Incentive system.
Kleros employs the three pillars above to solve current Judiciary system challenges in the following ways:
- Reduced Judiciary fees
As explained above, one of the reasons for high fees in judiciary system is the need to hire a lawyer. Kleros addressed this challenge by means of the smart contract technology.
Through smart contract, contract creators can select the amount of jurors they want to handle their case, and then select the court type the particular dispute falls under.
Those involved in the dispute will be charged an arbitration fee for the services of the jurors. This arbitration fee will be a small percentage of the fund held by the smart contract.
Because the Jurors are not full time lawyers, but people (who are knowledgeable in their field of specialty) who take the Kleros job as an extra source of income, the fees given to them are minimal compared to those demanded by full time lawyers.
To further reduce the cost of obtaining justice, the Kleros system is designed in such a way that the party in the dispute case that will be judged ''not guilty'' will be refunded his own share of the arbitration fee.
Finally, the people involved in the dispute have no right to choose who the jurors will be. They can choose the amount of jurors but not the person. The both parties have the same quality and quantity of jurors assigned to the case, hence providing a level playing ground.
With reduce Judiciary fees, individuals and small business owners no longer need to be scared of seeking justice because of the high cost associated with the current judiciary system. They can work directly with the Kleros system in carrying out all their business transactions, so that the addressing of any impending dispute will be easy.
- Fair and faster judgement delivery time.
We stated earlier that delay in judgment delivery is one of the challenges of the current judiciary system. This is primarily due to the list of cases awaiting attention.
To solve this challenge, there is need for more people to act as jury, so that more cases can be handled per time. To bring about this solution, Kleros employs the incentive system.
The incentive system is one where people are motivated to apply to serve as jurors, and be rewarded with tokens in return. With this reward system, more professionals in various fields of ecommerce, transport, and insurance, are motivated to apply for juror positions on the Kleros system
With more people available to serve in this role, it means that the amount of jurors available will be higher, and hence the amount of cases handled per time will be higher.
Also, in collaboration with the Schelling coin mechanism, the incentive system compels jurors to be honest and fair in their judgment, since this determines the reward they get or lose.
Since they don’t know what other jurors voted for, they will reason that other jurors will most likely go with the reasonable and fair judgement. And since only jurors that are part of the majority will have a reward, the jurors will individually want to vote rightly, to be part of that majority.
- Prevention of bribery and corruption.
The last challenge of the current judiciary system is the possibility of judges being bribed to thwart the judiciary process. I gave an example of how a Texas judge was convicted for bribery.
To solve this challenge, Kleros makes use of the Schelling coin mechanism, in addition to the system of appeal.
Schelling coin mechanism is one that makes jurors vote rightly, by taking advantage of their ignorance of what the other juror voted for. Since they would want to be part of the majority, they will believe that other jurors will vote for the right obvious choice, hence they too will want to vote for that right choice
This makes their judgement transparent and fair.
Also, through the system of appeal, those who want to bribe a juror will only end up spending more money, because as the case is appealed, more jurors will be added to the case, meaning that more jurors will have to be bribed for any significant outcome. The means the more the appeal, the higher the case goes, the more jurors are involved, and hence the slimmer the possibility of bribery.
Finally, to keep the Kleros system safe from manipulators, the following resistive mechanisms will be put into place: Buying half of the token and Bribe resistance.Source.
To solve the problem of buying half of the token by one party and hence controlling the system, the natural property of tokens to increase in value when huge amounts are bought will help prevent the further purchase of tokens, because of tremendous increase in price.
This means that the more tokens bought, the harder it becomes to buy more.
Also, because of the appeal system, the more people you bribe, the harder it becomes to move forward through bribery, because more jurors will be added the moment a case is appealed.
From all the numerous benefits we have said Kleros provides, you can tell that Kleros has numerous applications, ranging from ecommerce (example an agreement between individual freelancer and client, an agreement between an online shop owner and client), to transportation (example an agreement between a parcel forwarding company and client), to insurance(example an agreement between an insurance company and client), to corporate world( example an agreement between a bank and a client), to Judiciary system( example the adoption of the Kleros platform to handle cases with smaller financial contention), and finally to cryptocurrency (example in the application of smart contract in escrow technology).
- Application and use case in contract between individual freelancer and client
Freelancers are people who have knowledge in specific fields of life, and are willing to render services in that field for some fee.
Prior to Kleros, when freelancers deal with clients, most of the time they are left with no choice but to trust that clients will pay for services rendered. It has been recorded by Forbes magazine that 58% of freelancers have experienced not getting paid for their services.Source
With the help of the Kleros protocol, freelancers will no longer need to worry about payment for their services, because the funds will be held by the Kleros system via its smart contract technology. All that is required of the freelancer is to provide sufficient proof to the Kleros Jury.
Jacob is a freelancer that renders services of logo designing. In his 4 years of freelancing in this field, he has experienced eight situations where the clients he designed logos for refused to pay him for his services.
Since he depends on the money he gets for freelancing to foot his bills, he has no other choice but to trust that clients will pay. Although he makes some losses, he still manages with the profits he makes from the clients that pay him
Upon surfing the web, Jacob discovers about Kleros. He then begins to adopt the system into every contract he is to embark on. He makes sure that the funds to be paid is held in the Kleros system, such that when he meets the terms and conditions of the contract, he can get paid his money.
With the help of Kleros, Jacob will no longer experience any unpaid services and he is motivated to become better at his logo designing job.
- Application and use case in contract between an online shop owner and client
In this internet age, most people have at one point in time purchased a product from an online store. Because there are other issues outside of just clicking the buy button (issues like transportation, handling, and so on), there is the possibility of damage happening to the product.
On these online ecommerce stores (especially ones like ebay) that connect sellers to buyers without personally handling the product, there has been a thousand and one cases of complaints and dispute between sellers and buyers, with each one stating that the fault in the product was from the end of the opposite party.
Prior to Kleros, there was no way for these online stores to know who truly was at fault, since they personally did not handle the product, but just acted as a connection platform for the seller and buyer.
With the help of the Kleros system, these ecommerce sites no longer have to worry about judging these dispute cases, but can just pass all transactions through the Kleros system, so that they can be rightly and fairly judged if any dispute arises.
Claire is the manager of the dispute and conflict settlement section of eBay company. In the past three months, she has been experiencing an increased volume of dispute cases that get filled on the eBay website. Most of the time, it has to do with buyers complaining that the products they got were not in the condition the seller said they were in. She noticed that solving these cases were time consuming, and demanded scarce human resources being assigned to them.
Because of the increase in the volume of these cases, she was not able to assign much resources to each case, and hence she was not able to thoroughly investigate each case before taking decisions.
She comes to hear about Kleros, and begins to apply the system in solving some minor dispute cases. She monitored the results and noticed that they were correct and also settled in short periods of time.
She then starts assigning more and more cases to the Kleros system, getting correct verdicts in record time. Her superiors noticed how efficient she had become at her job, and she introduces them to Kleros. They then give her the permission to officially adopt Kleros as the company’s official dispute resolution protocol.
- Application and use case in contract between a parcel forwarding company and client
A parcel forwarding company is one that helps people receive and ship parcels, especially when the people are ineligible to shop in that particular country,
Most people have been defrauded by some of these parcel forwarding companies. They pay the shipping fees and deliver the products to the address of the forwarding company, only for the company to say they never received any parcel.
Prior to Kleros, buyers had no choice but to rely on reviews on parcel forwarding companies to decide which to work with. These reviews can be manipulated. There is need for a system that can guarantee the buyer of safe delivery of his product.
With the help of Kleros, buyers can be sure that they will receive their products, since forwarding companies will not receive payment for their services until it has been confirmed by the buyer. The funds will be held in the Kleros system until the goods have been delivered and received.
Bill is a small scale importer of wrist watches who lives in Ghana. He noticed that he could get them at a cheaper rate on the Amazon website. But because Amazon does not deliver electronic products outside of the USA, Bill has to depend on the services of parcel forwarding companies to deliver his wrist watches.
The previous companies he worked with failed to deliver his product, and also never refunded him the money he gave them for delivery. He has become discouraged and no longer imports wrist watches.
Upon finding out about Kleros, he begins his importation business again, but this time makes sure the contract passes through the Kleros system.
Through the system, payments are held and secured, only to be released when the buyer confirms that he has gotten the products,
Bill is back in business, and is making profits from his importation business.
- Application and use case in Judiciary system
As we have said earlier, the fees associated with the current judiciary system is really high, because the service of a lawyer has to be sought.
Prior to Kleros, small businesses who felt they were treated wrongly usually had no choice but to do nothing about it, especially after considering the huge financial fees associated with hiring a lawyer.
With the help of Kleros, the Judiciary system of countries can now have these small cases handled without the need of the players hiring lawyers, or them coming to the court to have the case settled.
The Judges can just assign these little cases to the Kleros system, as they focus on the more severe cases.
Mary is the chief justice of a small country in south east Asia. When she visited the courts handling disputes she noticed a pile of un-attended cases.
When she visited the town market, most of the small business owners complained of being cheated in one way or the other, but could not take it up in court because of the high fees involved.
To address this issue, Mary starts to research and finds about Kleros. She employs the Kleros system as a support to the Judiciary system, such that smaller cases will be referred to the Kleros system, while larger ones will be handled in court.
With this in place, more small business owners will be able to get justice, without the need to worry about hiring a lawyer. Mary will also be nominated for a medal of honor for her services to the judiciary system.
- Application and use case in Cryptocurrency Industry
One of the major determining factors for a successful cryptocurrency exchange is the ability to assure traders that they will get their funds when an exchange is being carried out.
With the help of the Kleros system, the escrow smart contract based technology helps secure cryptocurrencies until sellers have confirmed that they have received their funds.
And if a dispute arises, the funds will be held in the escrow, until the jury comes with a verdict based on the evidences tendered by parties in the dispute.
Anna is a cryptocurrency trader. She sells steem for fiat. She had sold steem to buyers in the past who said they had paid the fiat into her account, only for her to find no fiat in her account.
Upon reporting to the exchange, they did their research and for reasons beyond her knowledge, they judged the case against her, even when she was the right party. Because of this she lost a lot of money.
Upon finding about Kleros, she immediately starts using it for all her transaction since she knows that in addition to the escrow system of the platform, there are incorruptible jurors available to handle any dispute that arises.
With this in place, Anna is happy and calm minded, having her fiat transferred to account, whether voluntarily or by Jury verdict.
The Kleros token is called PinakionSource. The Pinakion (PNK) is the token upon which the Kleros platform will function. The aim of the token is to encourage and foster fair and honest participation on the platform, encouraging jurors to not just participate on the platform, but to participate with all sincerity and fairness.
Nobody wants to work for free. The token is to serve as an incentive to motivate service delivery in the form of acting as juror in one’s field of knowledge.
The token is not only for reward, but also for punishment. So jurors have something to lose when they give wrong verdicts.
The road map of company is an indication that the company is focused, knowing where it has been, where it is, and where it is going, all documented on paper.
The Kleros team is made up of experts who are highly experienced in the field of cryptocurrency. There is no way you can expect anything lesser than the best when people of such knowledge and pedigree come together.
The sky will be your limit when you have a team of highly knowledgeable and vastly experienced professionals as your advisors. This is what Kleros has – a team of advisors with many years of experience in their various fields of practice.
Just like in a marriage, when you have the right partners, the institution has a strong foundation. They further prove that your product is genuine and of high quality.
The current judiciary system has done pretty well when it comes to handling dispute cases in general. But when it comes to cases with little financial value, the costs associated with handling the case in court far outweighs the financial value of the case on ground.
When small business owners can’t afford these fees, should they be left with no hope of being given justice?
No. Kleros comes with the solution to this challenge.
Kleros provides an opportunity for fair and honest judgement to be made accessible and affordable to the common man, be it the small business owner, or the large business owner, such that at the end of the day, we can truly say that,
If you need any clarification on any issue with regards to Kleros, just drop your questions in the comment section, and I will make sure to attend to it.
For more information on Kleros, you can visit any of the following channels:
. KLEROS WEBSITE
• KLEROS WHITEPAPER
• KLEROS MEDIUM
• KLEROS YOUTUBE
• KLEROS TELEGRAM
• KLEROS TWITTER
• KLEROS GITHUB
• KLEROS FORUM
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