International Law and Dispute Settlement: New Problems and Techniques

Description

International dispute settlement plays a fundamental role in maintaining the fabric of the international legal order, reflecting the desire of States, and increasingly non-State actors, to resolve their differences through international dispute procedures and other legal mechanisms. This edited collection focuses upon the growth and complexity of such legal methods, which includes judicial settlement (courts and tribunals), arbitration and other legal (or what might be termed 'extra-legal') means (international organisations, committees, inspection panels, and ombudsmen). In this important collection, such mechanisms are compared and evaluated side-by-side to provide, in one volume, a detailed and analytical account of the current framework. Ranging from key conceptual issues of proliferation of legal mechanisms and the associated risks of fragmentation through to innovations in dispute settlement mechanisms in many topical areas of international law, including international trade law, collective security law and regional law, this collection, written by leading international lawyers, provides a major study in the ongoing trends and emerging problems in this crucial area of international law. This edited collection is published to mark the retirement of Professor John Merrills, Emeritus Professor of International Law, University of Sheffield, who has written widely on international law and human rights law, but is probably best known for his work on the settlement of international disputes, evidenced by the enduring appeal of his leading text International Dispute Settlement, now in its fourth edition.

Duncan French is Professor of International Law at the School of Law, University of Sheffield. Matthew Saul is a Lecturer in Law at Durham Law School, University of Durham. Nigel D White is Professor of Public International Law at the School of Law, University of Nottingham.

A unique and groundbreaking addition to the literature that everyone concerned with international law and dispute resolution should read. The contributors, the editors, the publishers and everyone else involved in making it a reality must be congratulated. Won Kidane The Law and Politics Book Review October 2010