From the point of view of international courts and tribunals we live in paradoxical times. There is more activity than ever in the professional memory of the present generation of international lawyers. Some at least of the cases – not only before the International Court but also (and perhaps even more so) before the WTO Dispute Settlement Body, the various human rights and international criminal courts and the ad hoc tribunals and commissions – are of considerable importance. The cumulation of cases is developing the jurisprudence of specific areas of international law in a rapid way. And yet there is a pervasive sense that the whole ‘system’ is insecure, uncertain in its constitutional underpinnings, erratic in the political support for it and largely unrelated to key issues facing the world at this time.

This being so, a study of the foundations of international decision-making by the first permanent international court is of renewed interest. The Permanent Court of International Justice was not seen by its members or by governments as a prelude or an overture to something else; it was the beginning of a distinctive and permanent institution. It faced its own problems of the elaboration of international judicial technique and the development of the law amidst political uncertainty and a wavering mandate. Dr Spiermann clearly identifies the focus of the work as ‘the use of international legal argument outside the Buchrecht, that is, in practice’.