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 Head of the School of Law at the University of Lincoln. 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.

Through an exceptional collection of contributions covering a wide range of the currently available dispute settlement mechanisms, a fitting honour is given to one of the most influential scholars in the field: -- Professor John G. Merrills. The relatively modest number of selected texts (14 contributions) is compensated by the outstanding quality of each contribution. By joining under the same cover very different perspectives on current dispute settlement mechanisms this Festschrift offers the keen reader in any of the substantive areas covered - or even to the specialist in dispute settlement - the possibility to discover in its pages a fresh angle from which disputes can be tackled, very much in the same style as Professor Merrills' celebrated International Dispute Settlement. Different to many other collective works, the book manages to maintain a high standard throughout all the collaborations. ...a delectable volume of superior quality, academic calibre, and worthy of frequent consultation has been produced. Undoubtedly it should stand as a natural complement to Merrill's International Dispute Settlement in any library. -- Lesther Antonio Ortega Lemus * Netherlands International Law Review * 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 *