This chapter describes the WTO dispute settlement system, focusing on its structure, procedures, and recent challenges. The WTO system, established in 1995, was a significant innovation in international trade law, featuring mandatory jurisdiction and a detailed set of rules in the Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU). It aimed to ensure adherence to WTO commitments and provide predictability to the trading system.However, recent US concerns over the Appellate Body’s functioning led to blocked appointments, rendering the Appellate Body defunct and the system non-binding. This crisis has led to the exploration of alternative mechanisms like the Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement (MPIA) and increased reliance on regional trade agreement dispute settlement mechanisms.

Based on an in-depth analysis of a few selected cases of commercial dispute and litigation, this chapter illuminates the functioning of the complex and competing legal systems and the mechanisms of dispute resolution among merchants in Surat in western India and Zanzibar in East Africa during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It explores the dynamics of this legal space, the endurance of legal plurality and qualitative changes in it over the period under review. It critically examines the perceived binary between the legal plurality of the pre-colonial period and the legal uniformity and centralization of the colonial period. The chapter argues that merchants usually sought to resolve their commercial disputes through informal negotiations, petitions, arbitration and legal proceedings in courts of law. The analysis of commercial disputes show that despite the emergence of the European (English) colonial legal system across the Indian Ocean arena in the nineteenth century and the colonial state’s push to make the law uniform and implement a single legal system, the normative and customary mechanisms of adjudicating commercial disputes endured in the colonial period.

This chapter focuses on the American Revolution of 1775–1783, which often appears as the first cause célèbre in the subsequent literature on the law of civil war. Studying closely the legal documents and case law during the revolution, it argues that the revolution of the thirteen colonies displayed a typical structure of transatlantic civil wars that was common with the early modern civil wars of Chapter 1 as well as the subsequent transatlantic revolutions. Its key features include the early emergence of an insurgent prize jurisdiction, the diplomatic disputes caused by the imperial counter-revolutionary responses, the question of foreign intervention, and ultimately the connection between sovereignty and state responsibility. It also links these phenomena with the rise of international arbitration as an essential technique of post-revolutionary settlements in the classical law of nations.

Chapter 12 offers a provocative and jurisprudentially ambitious argument: that sovereign equality requires states to submit to international adjudication or arbitration even in ordinary legal disputes that do not involve overlapping sovereign rights or powers.

This chapter begins by elaborating on the concept of a dispute, before providing a historical perspective on the evolution of the requirement to settle disputes peacefully. The chapter then explores diplomatic and legal methods of dispute settlement. Diplomatic forms of dispute settlement (also known as political or non-legal forms of dispute settlement) include negotiation, mediation, inquiry, and conciliation. Legal forms of dispute settlement include arbitration and adjudication. Resort by states to dispute settlement procedures, and in particular legal methods of dispute settlement, has grown exponentially in the last decades. Since the 1990s, the International Court of Justice has had an increasingly active docket of cases; in addition, the Permanent Court of Arbitration has undergone a sort of renaissance. The focus of this chapter is on the settlement of inter-state disputes, as opposed to disputes between states and non-state actors or between non-state actors.

This chapter will chart the early turbulent years after the Treaty of Managua, which gave Nicaragua sovereignty over an autonomous Mosquito Reserve. As Nicaragua attempted to consolidate and control the transit route, it pushed for greater incorporation of Greytown and the Reserve within the Republic. This chapter will follow the tense standoff between Nicaragua and the Mosquito Kingdom, which would ultimately be brought to international arbitration through British initiative. In this context, the opening of the Suez Canal sparked off renewed American interest leading to the Lull survey of 1872–1873, which underscored the paradoxical reality that as the struggle over the canal route and Mosquito Reserve threatened to become an international issue, the local conditions of Greytown were slowly making the entry point of the proposed canal route unnavigable. Ironically, Nicaragua’s efforts to leverage U.S. interests in the canal led to conflict with Guatemala’s aggressive unionism, undermining ideals of regional unity.

Chapter 9 examines the issue of whether and how foreign civil judgements against overseas-listed Chinese companies will be recognized and enforced in China. As overseas-listed Chinese companies usually have their main assets located in China, it is important that Chinese courts recognize and enforce foreign securities judgments. However, there are many difficulties in this area, which undermines the efficacy of the regulation of cross-border securities transactions. In quest of solutions, this chapter assesses the possibility of suing Chinese companies in the offshore financial centers where they are incorporated, finding that there would be similar issues with judgment enforcement in China. It also examines the viability of using arbitration as an alternative, arguing that arbitration may only supplement, rather than substitute, court litigation for resolving securities disputes.

Chapter 1 introduces the main issues raised in Labour Law and its social and economic significance in regulating workplace relations. The chapter introduces the principal sources of labour law in the UK, which include statutes, the common law and European law and the difficulties in securing compliance by employers with those laws. It describes the system of employment tribunals and ordinary courts where disputes are resolved. Finally the chapter introduces some contemporary themes concerning precarious work, work/life balance and human rights at work.

This chapter explores the growing prevalence of non-staff personnel within the UN system and the legal challenges they face in accessing justice. As non-staff personnel increasingly take on roles traditionally held by staff, they remain largely excluded from the jurisdiction of IATs and often may only avail themselves of arbitration clauses that can be prohibitive in practice. The chapter examines potential legal implications of this situation, such as functional immunity before domestic courts, as well as proposed solutions, such as alternative dispute mechanisms and expedited arbitration. It reviews current UN pilot projects aimed at providing non-staff personnel with informal dispute resolution avenues and discusses potential reforms to bridge the access-to-justice gap.

Chapter 6 aims to construct a future-looking theoretical framework for handling cultural objects for which questions of past illegality and/or illegitimacy arise but where a potential claimant – whether an individual, a community, or a source nation – is unable to pursue formal legal proceedings against the current possessor, and the relevant law enforcement agencies cannot equally pursue criminal, administrative, or public law proceedings. Accordingly, the chapter seeks to identify normative principles for dealing with the issue of “restitution” (broadly defined) that operates outside the realm of hard-law norms and institutions. It starts by examining the key aspects of the institutional/procedural and normative principles of the restitution committees established in certain European countries and tasked with the development and implementation of “just and fair solutions” to address Holocaust-era wrongful dispossessions. It then considers whether “just and fair solutions” can be devised for other contexts and, if so, how legalistic ethical reasoning could be adapted for these settings. The focus then shifts to the case study of France and its complex approach to the restitution of colonial-era objects to African source countries. The chapter then examines the various remedial mechanisms that are in operation, or that can be developed, to apply such normative principles to broader contexts of addressing past wrongs, including long-term loans, digital restitution, and the establishment of cross-border trusts to enable the joint custody and stewardship of collections. The chapter, and the book, conclude by addressing the role of such a normative blueprint, aligned with the concept of new cultural internationalism, in moving toward the convergence of law, policy, and markets for cultural property.

Social adaptation requires humans to respond to others’ nonverbal emotional cues by selecting and executing adaptive motor responses. In this chapter, we provide a general overview of how visual perception of others’ emotional expressions, particularly threatening faces and bodies, promotes rapid processing and elaboration of multiple opportunities for action, at different levels of complexity. Notably, we will highlight how subcortical and cortical neural pathways interact to flexibly orchestrate our social behavior in response to threatening expressions, ranging from simple stimulus-driven reactions to more elaborated goal-directed actions. We will review recent findings from research on humans and other animals and discuss clinical implications, as well as future challenges and perspectives.

The brain faces an array of behavioral control challenges varying in complexity, abstraction, and temporal scale. Leveraging multiple decision-making strategies offers a clear advantage, allowing for adaptability to different contexts. Even when solving a single problem, the selection from or combination of different strategies can enhance the likelihood of success. Consequently, the brain faces the critical task of arbitrating between experts effectively. Here, we review theories of multiple controllers in value-driven decision-making, the mechanisms of arbitration between them, and the neural correlates of such processes. Although these theories have provided meaningful explanations for observed behavior and neural activity, fundamental questions persist regarding the precise nature of these controllers, their interactions, and their neural underpinnings. Notably, the role of subjective states in these computations has been largely overlooked, despite their obvious importance in the experience of making decisions.

This chapter explains the various mechanisms for the resolution of disputes, chiefly arising out of violations of the rules of the ITF, ATP and WTA. It focuses on ITF mechanisms, starting with internal processes and on-site quasi adjudicatory mechanisms. It then goes on to examine the ITF’s Internal Adjudication Panel, especially its first-instance, appellate and supervisory function, followed by the Independent Tribunal, which is an arbitral body. It proceeds to look at the various types of powers and functions conferred on the Tribunal and the jurisdiction of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) arising out of appeals against the Independent Tribunal. The chapter examines briefly the very narrow ATP and WTA dispute resolution mechanisms and the role of national courts in dealing with contractual tennis disputes.

This chapter considers the various means and methods for the peaceful settlement of international disputes as envisaged under the UN Charter and associated mechanisms. The key provisions of the UN Charter are considered, followed by an assessment of various methods of dispute settlement: negotiation, enquiry, mediation and conciliation, arbitration and adjudication. Given its significance to international law, particular attention is given to the ICJ and its jurisdiction in contentious cases and to deliver advisory opinions. The relationship between the ICJ and the Security Council is assessed, as are trends in dispute settlement.

In this chapter, the authors frame the interwar period as instrumental for the institutionalisation of international dispute settlement, with respect to both the establishment of institutions and the development of new applicable law. The chapter focuses on the institutions, but equally emphasises the foundational principles which govern the field, with the principle of consent at the forefront; with all their characteristic features and limitations, such principles are conspicuous and remain valid today. The chapter gives context to the creation of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) and the subsequent establishment and the main features of the Permanent Court; last but not least, it pays homage to the mixed arbitral tribunals, with their impressive machinery and cases decided. The interwar period was undoubtedly a time of experimentation, but it would be naïve to believe that it has come to an end: experiments remain ongoing.