Comparing Employment Dispute Resolution in Pakistan and the UK:

Lessons for Pakistan

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-785-9_28How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR); Employment Disputes; Employment Laws; Pakistan; Employer-Employee Relationship

Abstract

Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), such as arbitration, mediation and conciliation, has gained prominence in recent years to resolve employment disputes. ADR is cost-efficient, fast and has the capacity to preserve the employer-employee relationship. Under the Employment Protection Act 1975, ACAS (Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service) was established as an independent public body that plays an indispensable role in resolving employment disputes in the UK. The Pakistani legal system is primarily based on a common law framework inherited from Britain. Unfortunately, Pakistan does not have a single overarching regulatory body specifically for employment dispute resolution through an ADR mechanism. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the employment dispute resolution mechanisms in Pakistan and the UK. This research will contribute to providing an effective dispute resolution mechanism to strengthen the employer-employee relationship in Pakistan. This study is qualitative in nature and based on library data. It is concluded that employment laws in the UK have been very effective in regulating employment disputes. In Pakistan, there are limited mechanisms to address employment disputes; however, these are inadequate due to the absence of proper legislation and a legal framework. Therefore, this article suggests that a comprehensive and independent regulatory body like ACAS should be established to promote uniformity and reduce disparities and inconsistencies in the employment dispute resolution mechanisms in Pakistan.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Fatima Ilyas
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/07
TI  - Comparing Employment Dispute Resolution in Pakistan and the UK:
BT  - Proceedings of the UUM 13th International Legal Conference 2025 (UUMILC 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 393
EP  - 408
SN  - 2667-128X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-785-9_28
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-785-9_28
ID  - Ilyas2026
ER  -