International Dispute Settlement in an Evolving Global Society:
Constitutionalization, Accessibility, Privatization, Francisco Orrego
Vicuña, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp.xxiii,
156.
This compilation of the author's 2001 Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial
Lectures at Cambridge provides a comprehensive overview of the methods and
modes of international dispute settlement. Included in the broad survey
are the central public and private dispute resolution processes at the
United Nations and the International Court of Justice (ICJ), regional
arrangements, national jurisdictions and private party-to-party
arrangements. The book achieves its stated goal of identifying trends and
provoking discussion of ways in which international dispute resolution can
be improved, and in the process has created a useful primer on
transnational dispute settlement for social scientists. The lectures have
been supplemented with footnotes and the book includes a comprehensive
bibliography that includes most of the important recent works in the
international law literature on dispute resolution. The strength of the
volume lies in its discussion of private dispute resolution and its
interplay with public institutions, an area that is often ignored or
played down in political science literature focused on state-to-state
legal arrangements and interstate relations.