an international court of arbitration established on July 29, 1899, by the Convention for Pacific Settlement of International Disputes at the First Hague Peace Conference. The court was reestablished by the revision of that convention on Oct. 18, 1907, at the Second Hague Peace Conference. Located in The Hague, the court was set up to facilitate the settling of disputes that could not be resolved by diplomatic means.

The court consists of a panel of jurists to which each state party to the convention appoints up to four members. Appeal to the court is not mandatory: the parties may submit disputes to another court of arbitration established by their mutual consent. The Permanent Court of Arbitration does not have a fixed membership and does not meet regularly. In each specific case, the court’s membership is drawn from a permanent list of specialists in international law.

The permanent agency of the Permanent Court of Arbitration is the International Bureau, the court’s office. The bureau is directed by a permanent Administrative Council composed of diplomatic representatives accredited to The Hague by the states that are parties to the convention; this council is headed by the minister of foreign affairs of the Netherlands.

The USSR is a party to the convention on the Permanent Court of Arbitration and since 1956 has appointed Soviet jurists as members of the court. The court also includes four jurists each from the Ukrainian SSR and the Byelorussian SSR.