4 Arbitration: Meaning, Nature and Importance

Meaning: the settlement of a dispute by a binding award of arbitrators appointed by the parties — jurisdiction by consent (the compromis — the special agreement submitting the dispute; the compromissory clause — the treaty's arbitration clause; the optional clause's analogues). Nature: a hybrid — the parties' instrument (the compromis defines the law and limits; the lex specialis of each case) staffed by adjudicators; the award's bindingness (pacta sunt servanda's face — resjudicata between the parties); the consensual pedigree distinguishing it from adjudication by a standing court.1. History and importance: the Alabama Claims arbitration (1871–72) — arbitration's modern founding: the US–UK Civil-War claims (the Alabama's commerce-raiding built in Britain) settled by the Geneva tribunal — the neutral-duties rules articulated (due diligence in preventing hostile fitting-out) and the compensation paid; the era's "arbitration movement" and the Hague Conventions of 1899/1907 — the Permanent Court of Arbitration established (the PCA — the standing registry and panel of arbitrators at the Peace Palace, available at the parties' consent; the institution's paradox: permanent machinery for ad hoc jurisdiction);2. The modern practice: the law-based arbitrations (the Eritrea–Ethiopia Boundary Commission; the India–Bangladesh and the era's maritime delimitations — the Bay of Bengal case's tribunal; the Nepal-relevant genre: the boundary commissions and the water-course questions' arbitral clauses); the investment arbitration revolution (ICSID — the investor-state's consent architecture,…