Abstract. The paper considers major principles of application of the multi-attribute systems to solve legislative tasks. In order to assess dispute resolution methods from economic, social and other points of view, it is necessary to apply methods for assessing solutions according to multiple attributes. All known multi-attribute methods cannot value the atribute weights as one weight of attribute is higher or lower significant than the other attribute. The new step-wise weight assessment ratio analysis method (SWARA) allows including experts, lawyers or dispute parties opinion about significance ratio of the attributes in the process of rational decision determination. SWARA method could be applied in practical implementation of specialised decision support systems and alternative dispute resolution in virtual environment. Starting with principles and established approaches, a problem-structuring methodology was developed which would condition the problem to allow a more thoughtful application of existing decision-making analytic methodologies.Keywords:SWARA, dispute resolution, decision-making, ratio analysis.Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Keršulienė, V.; Zavadskas, E. K.; Turskis, Z. 2010. Selection of rational dispute resolution method by applying new stepwise weight assessment ratio analysis (SWARA), Journal of Business Economics and Management 11(2): 243-258.