Hello, my name is Eric De Brabandere. Welcome to this course on the arbitration of international disputes. In this course we will explore together what can be expected of international arbitration in the settlement of international disputes. We will see how arbitration works in practice and which institution in the Hague are used to arbitrate international disputes. The main question of this course is, can international arbitration contribute to the creation of a peaceful world through the settlement of disputes between states and between states and non-state actors? Let me first introduce myself. I am a Professor of International Dispute Settlement Law and Director of the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies of Leiden University. I am based in our wonderful new building at The Hague campus of Leiden University. I also am a practicing attorney in Belgium, specialized in international arbitration and international dispute settlement. At the Grotius Centre we teach students from all over the world in our LLM programs, summer programs, and at Leiden University College. In that respect, I can already announce that we will launch an entirely new advanced master program focusing exclusively on international dispute settlement and arbitration. The new program will open in September, 2018. I also organize, together with the Permanent Court of Arbitration, a yearly arbitration training course, which takes place towards the end of August. The Grotius Centre has close ties with international arbitrators and arbitration institutions in the Hague. And through this course, we will do our best to make you benefit from those connections. This course is the third part of a series of online courses on International Law in Action, which focuses on how international law works in practice, and more specifically, it focuses on the Hague, the city of peace and justice. International arbitration and the Hague go hand in hand. Several key arbitration institutions are located in the Hague and important disputes were settled here through arbitration. The Hague is, so to speak, the place to be for international arbitration. Especially when we are dealing with arbitration between states, or arbitration of investment disputes between foreign investors and states. Arbitration is one of the two ways to settle disputes, together with judicial settlement. Contrary to judicial settlement, which is characterized by the fact that a dispute is settled by a standing tribunal, like the International Court of Justice, arbitration is designed by the parties to the disputes. They can choose the arbitrators. The law that governs the arbitration proceedings, what we call, procedural law. And the law applicable to the dispute, called applicable law. Arbitration can be categorize in several ways,. First, one can distinguish between the parties to the dispute. Arbitration can take place between two states, inter-state arbitration. Between states and non-state actors, individuals or private companies, sometimes termed mixed arbitration. Or between two non-state actors. In this course, we will focus on international arbitration involving at least one state. A second categorization is based on the way in which the arbitration is conducted. Arbitration can be ad hoc, in which case the parties to the dispute are responsible for determining and agreeing on the arbitration procedure and are not subjected to the procedures of an arbitral institution. The other method is Institutional arbitration. In institutional arbitration, the parties rely on the procedural rules of a chosen arbitration institution, and are assisted during the procedure by that institution. There are many different arbitration institutions that can assist arbitral tribunals in the settlement of disputes. For disputes in the field of international law the most prominent institutions are the Permanent Court of Arbitration, situated here in the Hague. And in the area of investment, disputes between the state and a foreign investor, The International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes, headquartered in Washington. The third categorization consists of dividing arbitrations based on the subject matter of the disputes. One can thus distinguish arbitration of commercial law disputes between two private parties. Investment disputes between states and foreign investors. Or disputes between states in relation to the law of the sea, for instance, boundary determination. As said, this course will focus mainly on arbitration involving at least one state and on disputes in the field of public international law. In the first module, we will focus first on the history of international arbitration and on the general principles of international arbitration. I will also introduce you to the work of the Permanent Court of Arbitration. In the second module, we will see how international arbitration is used to settle dispute between states under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which I will from here onwards call UNCLOS. We will explain how UNCLOS regulates the settlement of international disputes between the member states party to the convention, including the option given to states to choose either arbitration or settlements with the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. We will also discuss a recent dispute between the Philippines and China in relation to the South China Sea. The third module will focus on investment treaty arbitration. I will introduce you to the main principles of investment treaty arbitration, and the procedure at the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes, ICSID. Finally, in the fourth module, we will look at what happens after an arbiter award has been rendered. We will see how a valid decision can be rendered. What the parties who are dissatisfied with the decision can or cannot do. And we also look specifically at the aftermath of the Yukos Arbitration, an investment arbitration decided by an arbitral tribunal under the auspices of the Permanent Court of Arbitration.