The improvement in East-West relations promises new vitality for the vast variety of dispute-settling techniques afforded under international law to states in dispute. The Soviet Union is seriously considering whether to accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ, has strongly supported an activist role for the United Nations Security Council, has urged formation of a United Nations naval force and a re-examination of other UN peacekeeping possibilities, and has begun to play a constructive role in dispute settlement on the African continent, in Southeast Asia and in the Middle East. China and the Soviet Union have altered their national systems of commercial arbitration to render them more attractive to foreign litigants.

Professor Merrills’ concise manual is an invaluable guide to the basic hierarchy of techniques of peaceful settlement, illuminating the virtues and disadvantages of each: negotiation, mediation, enquiry, conciliation, arbitration, the World Court, the provisions of the UNCLOS, and the role of the United Nations and regional organizations. In hindsight it is perhaps startling that the UNCLOS procedures will require some time to get off the ground—contrary to initial expectations—whereas the traditional means of peaceful settlement, long moribund in East-West relations, seem the most promising at the moment.