The Permanent Court of Arbitration

1) Introduction

The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) is one of the major supranational bodies concerned with international disputes, and its work is complementary to that of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) (see Box 6). Both institutions are housed in the Peace Palace in The Hague.

Box 6: The UN Secretary-General on the Importance of the PCA

The importance of the PCA is shown by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Foreword to the Basic Documents of the PCA, in which he said that:

"... the Permanent Court of Arbitration and the International Court of Justice are not merely neighbours in the Hague Peace Palace; they are complementary institutions offering the international community a comprehensive range of options for the peaceful resolution of disputes.

"Settling international disputes by peaceful means, in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, is one of the central purposes of the United Nations set out in Article 1 of the United Nations Charter. Arbitration is among the methods of peaceful settlement cited in Article 33 of the Charter, and the Permanent Court has a long and distinguished history in this regard. In 1993, the General Assembly granted the Court the status of permanent observer, enabling it to participate actively in the discussions of the Assembly's Legal Committee.

"I encourage States, international organizations and private parties to make greater use of the Court's services, which also include fact-finding and conciliation; such recourse would help ease the workload of the International Court of Justice and fill gaps concerning arbitrations involving private parties and international organizations. I also urge States which have not ratified the Hague Conventions to do so. Developing countries, in particular, could well find the flexible instruments of dispute resolution to be invaluable."

An historical overview of the PCA is given in the next section, followed by a consideration of the Hague Peace Convention of 1899. That Convention, and the 1907 Hague Convention, set out the thinking behind the concept of an international body whose function would be to secure the peaceful resolution of disputes. This led to the creation of the PCA.

The chapter then goes on to consider some of the present-day procedures operated by the PCA. Two in particular are considered in some detail: first, the PCA's Optional Rules for Arbitrating Disputes between Two States, which are taken as an example of one of the various sets of Arbitration Rules available from the Court; and second, the PCA's Optional Rules for Conciliation.

The UN has a role to play in the PCA in that many of the Court's dispute resolution procedures - both arbitration and conciliation - are based on United Nations Commission o...

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