Conciliation In International Law

This volume collects the materials underlying the International Colloquium “Conciliation in the Globalized World of Today“, held on 11 and 12 June 2015 in Vienna under the auspices of the Court of Conciliation and Arbitration within the OSCE. The aim of the Colloquium was to examine the merits and possible shortcomings of this method of conflict resolution, and it concluded that the pros heavily outweigh the cons.

A guide to the techniques and institutions used to solve international disputes, how they work and when they are used. This textbook looks at diplomatic (negotiation, mediation, inquiry and conciliation) and legal methods (arbitration, judicial settlement). It uses many, often topical, examples of each method in practice to place the theory of how things should work in the context of real-life situations and to help the reader understand the strengths and weaknesses of different methods when they are used. It also looks at organisations such as the International Court and the United Nations and has been fully updated to include the most recent arbitrations, developments in the WTO and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, as well as case law from the International Court of Justice.

The very purpose of international law is the peaceful settlement of international disputes. Over centuries, states and more recently, organizations have created substantive rules and principles, as well as affiliated procedures, in the pursuit of the peaceful settlement of disputes. This volume of the Library of Essays in International Law focuses on the classic procedures of peaceful settlement: negotiation, good offices, inquiry, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, and agencies for dispute resolution. The introduction provides a unique historic overview, explaining how the procedures first developed and changed over time. Each chapter features a seminal essay that helped create the changes described in the introduction. Being at the center of international law, dispute resolution has always been a core topic of international scholarship, this volume brings together for the first time, the pivotal writing in the field.

Conciliation has recently seen a successful revival. It provides States with a flexible remedy to peacefully settle their disputes with neighbouring States. The most prominent mechanism for that purpose is the OSCE Court of Conciliation and Arbitration, unused until today.

A completely updated edition of a definitive survey of the peaceful settlement of disputes - a key aspect of international law and international relations. Many methods of handling such disputes have been developed, and this book explains what the relevant techniques and institutions are, how they work and when they are used. Separate chapters cover the various diplomatic methods (negotiation, mediation, inquiry and conciliation), the legal methods (arbitration and judicial settlement), the special arrangements for disputes concerning trade or the law of the sea, and the role of the United Nations and regional organisations. The strengths and limitations of each method are illustrated with numerous examples taken from international practice. This new edition deals with many current developments, including the latest UN peace-keeping operations, the work of the WTO and of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, and the latest case-law of the International Court of Justice.

Provides a comprehensive global survey on multi-tier dispute resolution, examining its trends, its strengths and weaknesses, and the way forward.

For many years it was said that the weakness of international law was the lack of a system for the enforcement of legal obligations. Commentators pointed to the paucity of cases in the International Court and the unwillingness of States to undertake binding obligations to settle their disputes. This position has now changed beyond recognition. The number of international tribunals has increased and many of them, such as ICSID and the International Court of Justice, are busier than at any time in their history. Increasingly, the classical procedures of diplomatic protection are circumvented as corporations and individuals litigate in their own right against States in international tribunals. This book surveys the range of procedures for the settlement of international disputes, whether the disputes arise between States or between States and corporations or individuals. The first part of the book examines non-judicial procedures such as negotiation, mediation, fact-finding, as well as judicial procedures. Among the tribunals covered are ICSID, the UNCC and the Iran-US Claim Tribunal, the WTO disputes panels, ad-hoc inter-State and international commercial arbitral tribunals and the International Court of Justice. In the second part of the book the emerging principles of procedural law applied in these tribunals are discussed. Here the authors go through the entire settlement process from the agreement to submit to a settlement procedure and the constitution of the tribunal, through to the determination of the law applicable to the merits and to the procedure of the tribunal, to the review, and ultimately the recognition and enforcement of tribunal awards.