International Dispute Resolution

International Dispute Resolution examines the principles and processes for resolving disputed questions of public international law. It follows the classic approach in this field of international law, being organized around the procedures: negotiation, good offices, mediation, inquiry, conciliation, arbitration, and judicial settlement. The disputes resolved through these methods may be treaty disputes, boundary disputes, disputes over human rights violations, environmental damage, and war crimes, for example. International dispute resolution is, in a sense, the civil and criminal procedure of international law, and the challenge is to teach procedural rules without spending too much time on the substantive law of the disputes being settled. This casebook meets that challenge. In addition, each section has a problem based on a real world international dispute. The problems, plus the compelling subject matter, challenge students to consider not only how the peaceful mechanisms of dispute resolution work in today’s world, but how those mechanisms can work better.