The dramatic rise in the number of international courts and tribunals and the expansion of their legal powers has been one of the most significant developments in international law of the late 20th century. The emergence of an international judiciary provided international law with a stronger than ever law enforcement apparatus, and facilitated the transformation of many aspects of international relations from being power-based to being law-based.

The first edition of the Manual on International Courts and Tribunals, published in 1999, was the first book to survey systematically this new institutional landscape, by describing in an accessible and uniformly structured manner the legal powers and operating procedures of all major international judicial and quasi-judicial bodies. In doing so, it laid the groundwork for comparative study and research of the law and practice of international courts and tribunals - an emerging field of international legal research, which has already spurred a series of publications, conferences and academic courses.

This second edition updates the first edition by describing the many legal changes that have taken place in the last decade, including important reforms in the laws and procedures of many international courts and tribunals, relevant developments in their increasingly rich jurisprudence and the creation of new judicial fora. Moreover, it assesses the overall record of these judicial bodies. The data and legal analysis offered in the book provide both practitioners and academics with an important basis of knowledge that will help them better understand the details of international adjudication and its context.

About the Author:
Ruth Mackenzie is Principal Research Fellow and Deputy Director of the Center for International Courts and Tribunals at the Faculty of Laws, University College London. She is a director of the Project on International Courts and Tribunals, and a member of the Steering Committee of the DOMAC project (research on the impact of international courts on domestic criminal procedures in mass atrocity cases). Ruth was a lawyer at the Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development in London from 1994 to 2003, directing FIELD's Biodiversity and Marine Resources program. Before joining FIELD, she qualified as a solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales. Ruth holds an LL.M in Public International Law and a BSc. (Econ.) from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Ruth is a member of the ILA Committee on International Law and Biotechnology and of the IUCN Commission on Environmental Law.

Cesare Romano is Associate Professor of Law at Loyola Law School Los Angeles and one of the Directors of PICT. He holds degrees in three different disciplines (political science, international relations and law) from three countries (Italy, Switzerland and the United States). His expertise is in public international law, and in particular dispute settlement, international environmental law, international human rights and international criminal law. However, it is probably the field international courts and tribunals where he has made to date the greatest contribution, publishing numerous articles and books.
Philippe Sands is Professor of Law and Director of the Center on International Courts and Tribunals in the UCL Faculty of Laws, and a key member of staff in the Center for Law and the Environment. His teaching areas include public international law, the settlement of international disputes (including arbitration), and environmental and natural resources law.
He has previously held academic positions at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies, Kings College London and University of Cambridge and was a Global Professor of Law at New York University from 1995-2003. He was co-founder of FIELD (Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development), and established the programs on Climate Change and Sustainable Development. He is a member of the Advisory Boards of the European Journal of International Law and Review of European Community and International Environmental Law. As a barrister he has extensive experience litigating international cases.

Prof. Yuval Shany is the Hersch Lauterpacht Chair in International Law at the Law Faculty of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He also serves currently as the academic director of the Minerva Center for Human Rights a director in the International Law Forum at the Hebrew University and the Project on International Courts and Tribunals (PICT) and a member of the steering committee of the DOMAC project (assessing the impact of international courts on domestic criminal procedures in mass atrocity cases).

Shany has degrees in law from the Hebrew University (LL.B, 1995 cum laude), New York University (LL.M., 1997) and the University of London (Ph.D., 2001) and he has published a number of books and articles on international courts and arbitration tribunals and other international law issues such as international human rights and international humanitarian law. Shany has taught in a number of law schools in Israel, and has been in recent years a research fellow in Harvard.