On September 24, 2012, PCA Secretary-General Hugo Siblesz addressed a select group of dignitaries at a Ministerial Breakfast meeting organized by the Netherlands’ Minister of Foreign Affairs. This side event to the UN High Level Meeting on the Rule of Law was designed to highlight the role of the institutions occupying the Peace Palace -- the International Court of Justice and the Permanent Court of Arbitration -- in enhancing the international rule of law through the peaceful resolution of disputes involving States. Apart from the Secretary-General, ICJ President Peter Tomka presented the other keynote speech.

The Secretary-General highlighted the role the PCA has played in recent years in upholding the international rule of law, particularly through its administration of an increasing number of inter-State and investor-State disputes. After noting the PCA's long slumber during the Cold War, when very few cases were being brought to the PCA, Mr. Siblesz stated:

“But something remarkable has happened in the last two decades: since the end of the Cold War and the onset of globalization in the 1990s, the international Rule of Law has experienced unprecedented acceptance and expansion. In fact, jurisdictions that were previously reserved or skeptical toward arbitration have reversed course and actively sought to promote its use. For the PCA, this has meant an expansion from only one case in the late 1990s to the current docket of 65 pending cases that deal with vital issues of State, including boundary disputes, sovereignty over maritime resources, water rights, the environment, and increasingly, disputes between foreign investors and host States. The PCA is currently experiencing the highest level of dispute settlement activity in its over 110-year history.”

Echoing UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s belief in the complementarity of the PCA and ICJ’s mandates in resolving international disputes, the Secretary-General also highlighted the ICJ’s growing docket: 

“This renaissance is true not only for the PCA, but also for the ICJ. These two institutions housed in the Peace Palace together form the two principal strands of the fabric of international dispute resolution – arbitration and adjudication – and thus complement each other in important ways. As former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan puts it, “the Permanent Court of Arbitration and the International Court of Justice are not merely neighbors in the Hague Peace Palace; they are complementary institutions offering the international community a comprehensive range of options for the peaceful resolution of disputes.” 

 

The full text of the Secretary-General's speech is available here.