Economic Conflicts and Disputes Before the World Court (1922-1995):A Functional Analysis (Studies and Materials on the Settlement of International Disputes, Vol 2)

This study on the role of both the International Court of Justice and its predecessor, the Permanent Court of International Justice, in dealing with disputes of an economic nature provides an analysis of an important problem that has so far been neglected and arrives at interesting conclusions, challenging the widespread view that the Court is not an appropriate forum to handle economic disputes between states. While much depends on the definition of what an "economic" dispute is, if one attempts to compare the use in such cases of adjudication through the standing Court with the use of more flexible arbitration by specially created bodies as methods of binding third-party dispute settlement, Professor Wellens' results offer insights. They also support the general observation that the differences between adjudication and arbitration, the distinction between which was relatively clear in the past, are in fact diminishing.