The international law commission defines it as a procedure for the settlement of disputes between states by a binding award on the basis of law and as a result of a voluntarily accepted undertaking owing to its tendency to blend civil law procedure and common law procedure international arbitration is sometimes also referred to as a hybrid form of international dispute resolution the international court of justice in the case of qatar v bahrain stated that the word arbitration for . Dispute settlement or dispute settlement system is regarded by the world trade organization as the central pillar of the multilateral trading system and as the organizations unique contribution to the stability of the global economy a dispute arises when one member country adopts a trade policy measure or takes some action that one or more fellow members consider to be a breach of wto agreements or to be a failure to live up to obligations by joining the wto member countries have agreed t. A dispute arises when a member government believes another member government is violating an agreement or a commitment that it has made in the wto the wto has one of the most active international dispute settlement mechanisms in the world since 1995 597 disputes have been brought to the wto and over 350 rulings have been issued. Hernandez international law oup 2019 pp 279 322 merrills international dispute settlement 6th edn cup 2017 pellet peaceful settlement of international disputes in wolfrum ed the max planck encyclopedia of public international law available at