ABSTRACT

Dealing with disputes, either to prevent them altogether or to settle them, constitutes one of the major purposes of law at any level. Dispute settlement at the international level has many different facets. Dispute settlement at the international level has many different facets. Chapter 5 dealt with methods other than adjudication. Chapter 6 addressed how national courts deal with disputes that fall within their jurisdiction. This chapter focuses on adjudication by international arbitral tribunals and international courts. International adjudication as a method involves the use of an impartial third-party tribunal that will result in a binding decision based upon law. For reasons discussed later in this chapter, formal legal proceedings form a minor method of dispute resolution in international relations. While negotiation, mediation, and conciliation as methods do not necessarily produce legally binding decisions (unless the agreement results in a treaty), and the outcomes do not necessarily reflect principles of law, states may still prefer them. This chapter focuses on the role(s), advantages, and disadvantages of adjudication in relationship to other methods of dispute resolution. 1

Expectations about what an effective “rule of law” at the international level would require inevitably reflect the vision of the perceived central role of courts in the domestic legal order where adjudication by permanent courts with standard rules of procedure forms the ideal method of dispute settlement. Needless to say, if this is the true measure, given the relatively limited scope accorded to adjudication in contemporary practice, the current system falls far short of the ideal. Simply put, states have seldom submitted disputes involving important interests to arbitral tribunals or courts. Yet one needs to remember the discussion in Chapter 11 about reparations and redress-and that adjudication, as mentioned, forms but

one method of dispute settlement, even in domestic societies. Remember as well that techniques of dispute resolution are not mutually exclusive exercises. For a starter, negotiation will almost always play a role in any dispute resolution effort no matter what method(s) states eventually choose for final resolution. 2 To build on the earlier discussion in Chapter 11 , states will weigh the advantages and disadvantages of various techniques against the advantages and disadvantages of other means available.