Until recently, the processes of mediation and arbitration were the main alternatives for settling construction disputes in South Africa. However, since the introduction in the early 1990s of the adjudication process in international construction contracts, contractual adjudication is slowly being introduced into the South African construction industry.  

This paper provides an overview of the development of adjudication as an alternative dispute resolution process (ADR) in South Africa and its effectiveness in solving disputes in the local construction industry. A further objective of this paper is to establish to what extent adjudication has been made use of since its introduction into the construction agreements in use in South Africa.