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* Secretary-General, Permanent Court of Arbitration; former Deputy Secretary-General, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Netherlands. This article is an adaptation of speeches delivered on the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of the Telders Society for International Law (Leiden University) on 17 February 2007 and the Conference of the World Legal Forum on 10 December 2007. The author is grateful to Fedelma Claire Smith, Assistant Legal Counsel, Permanent Court of Arbitration, for her research assistance in preparing this article.
The year 2007 marked the hundredth anniversary of the Hague Peace Conference of 1907, a milestone in the development of international law and relations between states resulting in the conclusion of the 1907 Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes on 18 October 1907. Through this Conference, for the first time a global, coherent system emerged for the peaceful resolution of international disputes. The centenary of the 1907 Convention afforded the opportunity to reflect on the system of arbitration of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), which, more than a century on, remains an attractive dispute resolution mechanism for states and non-state entities alike. Whereas in 1907 a permanent arbitral forum where states could take disputes was an idealistic undertaking, and certainly ahead of its time, today states are accepting arbitral jurisdiction for their disputes at an unprecedented rate.
The purpose of this article is to present an overview of the achievements of the PCA in the light of these centennial reflections.
Against the background of a continuing growth in the number of interstate disputes, it is critical for governments in today's world to have ready access to reliable, efficient, and, above all, effective methods of dispute resolution. The delegates at the 1907 Hague Conference knew a world considerably less complex but no less dangerous than that of today, and world leaders attending the conference were determined to find a way to consolidate a system for interstate dispute resolution. It had been this rising concern among world leaders to manage conflict that had led to the first Hague Peace Conference of 1899, at which the PCA was established. The purpose of establishing the Permanent Court of Arbitration was to provide a permanent and readily available organization to serve as the registry for international arbitrations and commissions...