| Summary: | "As has been widely acknowledged and documented, there has been an impressive increase in interstate litigation over the past decade. More than ever, international courts and tribunals are being regularly engaged by a wide array of states, from north and south, seeking peaceful and authoritative resolution of their disputes. These disputes include disparate subject matters including but not limited to armed conflict, land and maritime border disputes, territorial sovereignty, global trade, human rights, diplomatic relations, and consular affairs. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has (almost) never been as active is it now is. The ICJ's docket currently has 17 pending cases . A record of six judgments were rendered in 2018 and one judgment was rendered in 2019 . The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) has, since it heard its first case in 1997, decided 25 disputes. The World Trade Organisation Dispute Settlement System (WTO DSU) has decided over 500 disputes since 1995, despite the deadlock situation it finds itself in at the moment. The total number of interstate arbitrations in which the PCA acted as a registry amounted to 199 in 2019, of which 49 were initiated in that year. Of the total number of PCA administered cases in 2019, four cases were purely interstate arbitrations (an additional 125 were treaty-based investor-state arbitrations). When one adds to these large numbers the disputes heard by other bodies with jurisdiction over interstate disputes, including the growing body of regional courts and tribunals, one starts to grasp the prominent role that international courts and tribunals currently play in the resolution of interstate disputes"--
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