Introduction

• Author: Anthony Connerty
• Profession: Barrister and member of WIPO arbitration panel
• Pages: 3-7

Contenidos

• Part I.
• Part II.
• Part III.
• Part IV.
• Part V.
• Part VI.
• Dispute Resolution Chart.

"Arbitration is a valuable lubricant in international trade and businessmen are entitled to such help as Governments can reasonably give them in making it effective."

Sir Michael Kerr ²

Page 3

This Manual seeks to give an outline of five broad areas of international dispute settlement and resolution:

* supranational disputes;

* supranational dispute resolution bodies;

* international commercial dispute resolution;

* institutions and other bodies concerned with the resolution of disputes in the field of international commerce;

* online dispute resolution.

Within these areas, it looks at territorial and maritime delimitation disputes as well as at disputes in the fields of investment, international trade and intellectual property. It is divided into six parts:

Part I contains an overview of dispute avoidance and dispute resolution.

Part II deals with supranational dispute resolution.

Part III looks at supranational dispute resolution bodies.

Part IV considers international commercial dispute resolution and the bodies dealing with such disputes.

Part V moves into the electronic era and looks at online dispute resolution. Part VI seeks to provide a summary of the Manual and to take a look into the future.

Part I

The chapters in Part I contain introductory matters and seek to give an overview of material that appears in Parts II-V of the Manual.

Although the focus here is mainly on dispute resolution and settlement, it goes without saying that - if at all possible - disputes should be avoided. Chapter 2 therefore looks at some methods in use around the world that are aimed at stopping disputes from arising in the first place.

Chapter 3 gives a brief introduction to the four dispute resolution processes that are considered in detail later in the Manual: litigation, arbitration, alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and expert determination. It also mentions some of the organisations involved in the resolution of international disputes. First, there are what might be described as supranational courts and tribunals: the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID Centre). All of these are considered in more detail in later chapters.

Second, these organisations include some of the international bodies concerned with international commercial dispute resolution: the London Court of International Arbitration; the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC); thePage 4 American Arbitration Association's International Centre for Dispute Resolution in Dublin; the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission; the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce; the Netherlands Arbitration Institute; and a specialist intellectual property body - the United Nations' World...