Introduction

Disputes are inextricably linked to international relations. Increasingly these disputes are no longer just primarily between states but also between states and other parties like international organizations and other non-state actors, and between these actors mutually. In this context the Charter of the United Nations (UN) plays a major role, in particular, regarding disputes between states. Article 2(3) of the UN Charter states that all Member States have to settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered. This view was again confirmed in 1982 in a resolution (Res. 37/10) of the UN General Assembly, the so-called Manila Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of International Disputes.

As the UN Charter does not prescribe in which way or by what means disputes need to be resolved, the parties are free to choose their dispute settlement mechanism. In the framework of international peace and security Article 33 of the UN Charter provides a number of alternatives to choose from in resolving disputes, e.g., negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, and judicial settlement. Notwithstanding the free choice of means the Manila Declaration underlines the legal obligation of parties to find a peaceful solution to their dispute and refrain from action that might aggravate the situation. The methods and procedures of dispute settlement for states also largely apply to non-state actors. These various forms of peaceful dispute settlement are the subject of this general research guide. In addition, there are research guides available on International (commercial) Arbitration, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, and the International Court of Justice. Information and resources on disputes concerning foreign investment and investment arbitration can be found in the research guide on Foreign Direct Investment.

This Research Guide is intended as a starting point for research on the subject. It provides the basic legal materials available in the Peace Palace Library, both in print and electronic format. Handbooks, leading articles, bibliographies, periodicals, serial publications and documents of interest are presented in the Selective Bibliography section. Links to the PPL Catalogue are inserted. The Library's systematic classification → Public international law and subject headings (keywords) Pacific settlement of international disputes, International dispute settlement, International mediation, and Judicial settlement of international disputes are instrumental for searching through the Catalogue. Special attention is given to our subscriptions on databases, e-journals, e-books and other electronic resources. Finally, this Research Guide features links to relevant websites and other online resources of particular interest.

New titles

The Peace Palace Library has a collection of over a million publications. Each week, about six hundred new titles are added to our collection: books, articles, documents, online publications, etc. On this page, access is provided to this week’s new titles on Settlement of international disputes. It covers both means, procedures and activities.

1. The WTO Dispute Settlement system: Dealing with Success

The WTO Dispute Settlement system: Dealing with Success / William J. Davey. - Oxford : Oxford University Press. - Pages 11-25 In: International Economic Law and Governance / edited by Julien Chaisse and Tsai-Yu Lin, ISBN 9780198778257: (2016), Pages 11-25. - 2016
Keywords: World Trade Organization, Judicial settlement of international disputes, International trade,

2. The Dispute Settlement System of the WTO: a Bright Picture with a Few Ark Spots

The Dispute Settlement System of the WTO: a Bright Picture with a Few Ark Spots / Claus-Dieter Ehlermann. - Oxford : Oxford University Press. - Pages 26-29 In: International Economic Law and Governance / edited by Julien Chaisse and Tsai-Yu Lin, ISBN 9780198778257: (2016), Pages 26-29. - 2016
Keywords: World Trade Organization, Judicial settlement of international disputes, International trade,

Bibliography

New titles

Librarian's choice

• Gallus, N., Temporal Jurisdiction of International Tribunals, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2017.

  

  The period of an international tribunal's temporal jurisdiction is the span of time during which an act must have occurred before the tribunal may consider if the act breached an obligation. There are many questions concerning this particular aspect of an international tribunal's jurisdiction: Does a tribunal have power over acts that occurred after the entry into force of the obligation allegedly breached, but before the tribunal's jurisdiction was accepted? What about acts that began before the tribunal's jurisdiction was accepted but continued after? To what extent can acts before the period of the tribunal's jurisdiction affect its decision on whether or not there is a breach through acts afterwards? The Temporal Jurisdiction of International Tribunals examines these questions in depth. Despite its importance, the temporal jurisdiction of international tribunals is not well understood. Tribunals often confuse different aspects of their jurisdiction and refuse to hear cases they should have heard, or agree to hear cases they should not. This book reduces this confusion by clarifying the different limits on the temporal jurisdiction of international tribunals and the important distinctions between those limits. The book examines the temporal limits resulting from (i) the entry into force of the obligation supposedly breached, (ii) the acceptance of the tribunal's jurisdiction, and (iii) from the period of limitation, as well as the effect of acts that occurred before these limits. Throughout the book, the author comprehensively compares decisions from a wide variety of sources, including the International Court of Justice, Human Rights Courts, World Trade Organization panels, and investment treaty tribunals.

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• Buggenhoudt, C., Common Interests in International Litigation: A Case Study on Natural Resource Exploitation Disputes, Cambridge, Intersentia, 2017.

  

  How are common interests protected in international dispute settlement? What is the role of different courts and tribunals? Why is the case law on common interests (in)consistent? Do we need more consistency for a better protection of common interests? The study provides answers to questions that arise in international litigation as a result of an increasing recognition of common interests in this field and an ever-expanding network of specialised judicial bodies. This book studies the case law of a number of international courts, focusing on international litigation concerning natural resource exploitation. This is a theme closely linked to a number of common interests, one which has been considered by a number of courts dealing with human rights, international security, international trade, international investment, the law of the sea, and more.

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• Shany, Y., Questions of Jurisdiction and Admissibility before International Courts, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2016.

  

  This examination of the jurisdiction of international courts and the admissibility of cases before them analyses jurisdictional and admissibility rules in light of the roles assumed by international courts in international life and in light of the roles that jurisdictional and admissibility rules play in promoting the effectiveness and legitimacy of international courts. The theory pursued views jurisdiction as a form of delegation of power (the power to exercise judicial power and decide the law) and regards admissibility as a framework for deciding upon the propriety of exercising such power. On the basis of this theoretical framework, the author critically evaluates the exercise of judicial discretion in the existing case law of a variety of international courts, distinguishing between the category-based case selection implicit in jurisdictional rules and the case-by-case analysis and selection implicit in rules on admissibility.

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• Beckman, R. (et al.), Promoting Compliance : The Role of Dispute Settlement and Monitoring Mechanisms in ASEAN Instruments, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2016.

  

  The reputation and achievement of the ASEAN Community hinges on compliance. This seminal book discusses whether ASEAN's faith in dispute settlement and monitoring mechanisms as a means to better compliance is justified and delves into the extent to which they can facilitate ASEAN Community building. It provides the first comprehensive and systematic analysis of ASEAN's compliance with its instruments, and enables readers to see ASEAN as an organisation increasingly based on law and institutions. Readers will also learn how ASEAN balances a thin line between law and institutions on the one hand and diplomacy and realism on the other. Scholars of adjudicatory mechanisms will find this book a fascinating addition to the literature available, and it will serve as a 'go-to' reference for ASEAN state agencies.

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• Johns, L., Strengthening International Courts: The Hidden Costs of Legalization, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 2015.

  

  As all manner of commerce becomes increasingly global, states must establish laws to protect property rights, human rights, and national security. In many cases, states delegate authority to resolve disputes regarding these laws to an independent court, whose power depends upon its ability to enforce its rulings.
  Examining detailed case studies of the International Court of Justice and the transition from the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade to the World Trade Organization, Leslie Johns finds that a court’s design has nuanced and mixed effects on international cooperation. A strong court is ideal when laws are precise and the court is nested within a political structure like the European Union. Strong courts encourage litigation but make states more likely to comply with agreements when compliance is easy and withdraw from agreements when it is difficult. A weak court is optimal when law is imprecise and states can easily exit agreements with minimal political or economic repercussions. Johns concludes the book with recommendations for promoting cooperation by creating more precise international laws and increasing both delegation and obligation to international courts.

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• Megzari, A., The Internal Justice of the United Nations : A Critical History, 1945-2015, Leiden, Brill Nijhoff, 2015.

  

  Since 1945, the United Nations has had an internal justice system to handle internal disputes and examine employee conformity with its rules of governance. Based on an exhaustive analysis of 3,067 judgements, advisory opinions, and General Assembly debates on the issue, The Internal Justice of the United Nations offers an unparalleled account of the system’s effectiveness and shortcomings over its seventy year history.

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• De Baere, G., and J. Wouters (eds.), The Contribution of International and Supranational Courts to the Rule of Law, Cheltenham, UK, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2015.

  

  International and supranational courts are increasingly central to the development of a transnational rule of law. Except for insiders, the functioning and impact of these courts remain largely unknown. Addressing this gap, this innovative book examines the manner in which and the extent to which international courts and tribunals contribute to the rule of law at the national, regional, and international levels. With unique insights from members of the international judiciary, this authoritative book deals with the fundamental procedural and substantive legal principles, sources, tools of interpretation, and enforcement used by the respective judicial bodies. The rule of law-focused approach offers a unique opportunity for a thorough cross-case analysis of the differences and commonalities in the essential contributions of the respective courts and tribunals to international justice. The book also includes an in-depth theoretical framework and allows for the identification of fundamental principles and commonalities, as well as differences and contrasts between the different judicial bodies.

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• Schonewille, M. and F. Schonewille (eds.), The Variegated Landscape of Mediation: A Comparative Study of Mediation Regulation and Practices in Europe and the World, The Hague, Eleven International Publishing, 2014.

  

  A comprehensive overview of global mediation regulatory frameworks for commercial and civil cases. And a practical overview of the development of mediation and worldwide mediation practices in 60 jurisdictions, with a special emphasis on the European Union. This book allows for a direct comparison, based on standardised benchmarks for each country. Helpful for those mediating across borders, academics and those involved in legislative efforts. Authors who are each knowledgeable professionals in their jurisdictions, give a comprehensive and fascinating overview of the mediation development in their country in the individual state chapters. Combined, these chapters show the captivating breadth and variety of scope of mediation regulations and practices around the world. We hope that this will become a standard reference book for practitioners and academics alike. It can support comparative academic studies, and provide guidelines to professionals mediating across borders. As well as to legal counselors who are supporting clients in international cases.

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• Salles, L.E., Forum Shopping in International Adjudication, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2014.

  

  Forum shopping, which consists of strategic forum selection, parallel litigation and serial litigation, is a phenomenon of growing importance in international adjudication. Preliminary objections (or a party's placement of conditions on the existence and development of the adjudicatory process) have been traditionally conceived as barriers to adjudication before single forums. This book discusses how adjudicators and parties may refer to questions of jurisdiction and admissibility in order to avoid conflicting decisions on overlapping cases, excessive exercises of jurisdiction and the proliferation of litigation. It highlights an emerging, overlooked function of preliminary objections: transmission belts of procedure-regulating rules across the 'international judiciary'. Activating this often dormant, managerial function of preliminary objections would nurture coordination of otherwise independent and autonomous tribunals.

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• Klein, N. (ed.), Litigating International Law Disputes: Weighing the Options, Cambridge New York, Cambridge University Press, 2014.

  

  Litigating International Law Disputes provides a fresh understanding of why states resort to international adjudication or arbitration to resolve international law disputes. A group of leading scholars and practitioners discern the reasons for the use of international litigation and other modes of dispute settlement by examining various substantive areas of international law (such as human rights, trade, environment, maritime boundaries, territorial sovereignty and investment law) as well as considering case studies from particular countries and regions. The chapters also canvass the roles of international lawyers, NGOs, and private actors, as well as the political dynamics of disputes, and identify emergent trends in dispute settlement for different areas of international law.

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• Romano, C.P.R., K.J. Alter and Y. Shany (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of International Adjudication, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014.

  

  The post Cold War proliferation of international adjudicatory bodies and international adjudication has had dramatic effects on both international law and politics, greatly affecting international relations, particularly economic relations, the enforcement of human rights, and the criminal pursuit of perpetrators of mass atrocities. International courts and tribunals have become, in some respects, the lynchpin of the modern international legal system. The Oxford Handbook of International Adjudication uniquely brings together analysis of the legal, philosophical, ethical and political considerations brought about by these bodies. It provides an original and comprehensive understanding of the various forms of international adjudication. A series of cross-cutting chapters overview key issues in the field, both theoretical and practical, providing scholars, students, and practitioners with a detailed understanding of important legal and political influences within the international adjudicative process. The Handbook is divided into six parts. The first part provides an overview of the origins and evolution of international adjudicatory bodies, from the nineteenth century to the present, highlighting the dynamics driving the multiplication of international adjudicative bodies and their uneven expansion. The second analyses the main families of international adjudicative bodies, providing a detailed study of state-to-state, criminal, human rights, regional economic, and administrative courts and tribunals, as well as arbitral tribunals and international compensation bodies. The third part lays out the theoretical approaches to international adjudication, including from political science, sociology, philosophy, ethics, and the perspectives of developing countries. The fourth part examines some contemporary issues in international adjudication, including the behavior, role, and effectiveness of international judges, the political constraints that restrict their function, as well as the making of international law by international courts and tribunals, the relationship between international and domestic adjudicators, the election and selection of judges, the development of judicial ethical standards, and the financing of international courts. The fifth part examines key actors in international adjudication, including international judges, legal counsels, international prosecutors, and registrars. Finally, the sixth provides an overview of some selected legal and procedural issues facing international adjudication, such as evidence, fact-finding and experts, jurisdiction and admissibility, the role of third parties, inherent powers, and remedies.

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• Alter, K.J., The New Terrain of International Law: Courts, Politics, Rights, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2014.

  

  n 1989, when the Cold War ended, there were six permanent international courts. Today there are more than two dozen that have collectively issued over thirty-seven thousand binding legal rulings. The New Terrain of International Law charts the developments and trends in the creation and role of international courts, and explains how the delegation of authority to international judicial institutions influences global and domestic politics.

  The New Terrain of International Law presents an in-depth look at the scope and powers of international courts operating around the world. Focusing on dispute resolution, enforcement, administrative review, and constitutional review, Karen Alter argues that international courts alter politics by providing legal, symbolic, and leverage resources that shift the political balance in favor of domestic and international actors who prefer policies more consistent with international law objectives. International courts name violations of the law and perhaps specify remedies. Alter explains how this limited power--the power to speak the law--translates into political influence, and she considers eighteen case studies, showing how international courts change state behavior. The case studies, spanning issue areas and regions of the world, collectively elucidate the political factors that often intervene to limit whether or not international courts are invoked and whether international judges dare to demand significant changes in state practices.

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Database

Blogs

• Essequibo, the Territorial Dispute between Venezuela and Guyana

  The Essequibo (in Spanish, Esequibo), is an undeveloped, sparsely populated but resource-rich jungle territory region, nearly sixty percent of modern Guyana, consisting of all its territory west of the Essequibo River (see map). Venezuela’s deeply rooted belief is that the Essequibo region was unjustly taken from them by meddling foreign powers. It is a matter of national integrity, made more alluring by the possible wealth of natural resources there. Guyana’s position is that they are trying to defend the land that has been part of their country for almost 200 years, land they need to help develop their country economically.

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• Building a 'Temple for Peace': the Choice of the Site

  The Treaty for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, concluded on 29 July 1899, determined that the newly created Permanent Court of Arbitration was to be established at The Hague. As Andrew Carnegie’s gift of 1903 was meant primarily for the erection of a new and appealing court house and library to serve its arbiters, there could be no argument, as to where this ‘Temple for Peace’ was to be built. It should be at The Hague. But where in The Hague precisely was quite another thing.

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• Bolivia’s Centenarian Maritime Claim before the International Court of Justice

  Despite losing its maritime coast, the so-called Littoral Department, after the War of the Pacific, Bolivia has historically maintained, as a state policy, a maritime claim to Chile. The claim asks for sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean and its maritime space. The Political Constitution of 2009 established that Bolivia declares its right to access to the sea, and that its objective is to solve the problem peacefully. Therefore, on 24 April 2013, Bolivia instituted proceedings against Chile before the International Court of Justice. A guest blog by Elizabeth Santalla Vargas.

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• Building a ‘Temple for Peace’: Inspired Advocates and a Philanthropist

  Shortly after the 1899 Hague Peace Conference had ended, William T. Stead, a highly energetic and respected British journalist and pacifist who had followed the peace conference as an observer, and Andrew D. White, the American head of delegation and ambassador in Germany, convinced the Scottish-born American steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie to finance the ‘Temple for Peace’ that was to become the Peace Palace in The Hague.

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• ARGO and the Follow-Up: Iran and the United States

  33 Years after the event, Hollywood has turned its attention to an episode that traumatized the United States for months: the seizure of the American Embassy in Tehran. As the US Embassy falls to a group of Islamist students and militants in support of the Iranian revolution and in retaliation for the USA’s sheltering of the recently deposed Shah, six diplomats slip out and seek sanctuary in the Canadian’s ambassador’s residence. It is up to the CIA’s Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) to extract them from the country before they are discovered by the Revolutionary Guards. The plan? Create a fake movie, called Argo, and pretend they’re the crew.

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• Shabtai Rosenne Memorial Lecture

  On Thursday, 24 November the first Shabtai Rosenne Memorial Lecture, delivered by Professor Malcolm N. Shaw Q.C., Senior Fellow at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law at the University of Cambridge, took place at the Peace Palace in The Hague, a little more than a year after Professor Rosenne’s death. In his lecture entitled, “The Peaceful Settlement of Disputes: Paradigms, Plurality and Policy”, Professor Shaw gave an overview of where he thought dispute resolution was at the moment.

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• The Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation in The Hague

  The Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation seeks to promote tolerance and reconciliation through helping scholars from different sides of a conflict work together to research and write narratives that can be shared among communities or peoples in conflict. Through this process of shared work, a better understanding of “the other” is gained by both sides.

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• Abyei Arbitration Award

  On Wednesday 22 July, the Arbitral Tribunal at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague rendered its final Award [PDF] in the case between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) concerning the delimitation of the boundaries of the Abyei Area. The arbitration is based on an Arbitration Agreement between the Parties that was deposited with the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) on 11 July 2008.

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• Maritime Delimitation in the Black Sea (Romania v. Ukraine)

  On Tuesday 3 February 2009 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) rendered its Judgment in the case concerning Maritime Delimitation in the Black Sea (Romania v. Ukraine). A public sitting took place at 10 a.m. at the Peace Palace in The Hague, during which the President of the Court, Judge Rosalyn Higgins, read the Court’s Judgment.

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Links

See also

More Research guides on Settlement of International Disputes

• International Arbitration
• International Court of Justice
• Permanent Court of Arbitration

PPL keywords

• International dispute settlement
• Judicial settlement of international disputes