Private Dispute Resolution in International Business consists of two books and an interactive DVD-ROM. Volume I follows the progress of a dispute between two companies, in step-by-step detail, through negotiation, mediation, and arbitration in turn. Volume II provides precise, informed solutions to the problems raised in the first volume’s case study. The DVD-ROM contains not only all contracts and other written documentation produced during the dispute—including all procedural orders and awards rendered by the arbitral tribunal during the arbitration, the text of legal materials such as arbitration laws and rules and international conventions, and further learning and teaching aids—but also almost 100 videos dramatising the negotiation, mediation, and arbitration proceedings described in the books, conducted by highly experienced practitioners active in the field of international dispute resolution. Subtitles in the videos refer the viewer to paragraphs in the books where each relevant legal problem is analysed. In addition, an internet home page provides regular updates.

To summarise:

• The Case Study (Volume I) provides a realistic and highly practical approach to learning and teaching the law and practice of private dispute resolution in international business.
• The Handbook (Volume II) provides a comprehensive comparative study of the law of international dispute resolution.
• The DVD-ROM allows for a highly innovative, interactive teaching and learning experience, and provides a comprehensive collection of arbitration rules and other documentary material.
• The videos on the DVD-ROM clearly manifest the soft skills and advocacy skills required to successfully resolve international business disputes, including the unique opportunity to draw on-screen comparisons between the negotiation, mediation, and arbitration methods.

With its concrete and highly practical approach, this innovative teaching and training tool for international dispute resolution will be of immeasurable value to students and teachers of dispute resolution, corporate counsel, international lawyers, and business people.

The DVD-ROM has a large number of interactive teaching and learning features which you can use simultaneously with the books or separately. The main menu of the DVD contains seven buttons:

• ‘Parties and Persons’,
• ‘Case Development’,
• ‘Documents and Events’,
• ‘Materials’,
• ‘Videos’,
• ‘Soft Skills’ and
• ‘Links’.

The button ‘Parties and Persons’ provides an overview of the ‘actors’ who appear in the video section of the DVD-ROM.

Under the button ‘Case Development’ you will find an animated graphical Case Development which enables you to better understand the sequence of events in the first two Scenarios of the Case Study. This tool should therefore be used simultaneously with the Case Study.

Under the button ‘Documents and Events’ you will find a chronological list of events for each Scenario, together with the relevant documents produced by the xvi Private Dispute Resolution in International Business – Handbook parties during the contract negotiations, the negotiations in the Hague, the mediation (fax messages, general contract conditions, etc.) and the arbitration (legal briefs, communications from the DIS Secretariat, orders of the Tribunal, awards, etc.) as pdf files. You should refer to these documents whenever the symbol‘( )’ indicates that the document is reproduced on the DVD.

Under the button ‘Materials’, you will find the laws, mediation and arbitration rules etc. which are referred to in the book. Again, the symbol ‘( )’, which you find both in the Case Study and the Handbook, indicates that the material can be found on the DVD-ROM.

Under the ‘Soft Skills’ button you will find a variety of learning and teaching aids for negotiation, mediation and arbitration.

Finally, the internet homepage at www.private-dispute-resolution.com provides regular updates for the problems covered in the Handbook and more.