"The creation of the Court represented the culmination of a long process of developing methods for the pacific settlement of international disputes, the origins of which can be traced back to classical times. Article 33 of the United Nations Charter lists the following methods for the pacific settlement of disputes between States: negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, and resort to regional agencies or arrangements, to which should also be added good offices. Some of these methods involve the services of third parties. For example, mediation places the parties to a dispute in a position in which they can themselves resolve their dispute thanks to the intervention of a third party. Arbitration goes further, in the sense that the dispute is submitted to the decision or award of an impartial third party, so that a binding settlement can be achieved. The same is true of judicial settlement (the method applied by the International Court of Justice), except that a court is subject to stricter rules than an arbitral tribunal, particularly in procedural matters. Historically, mediation and arbitration preceded judicial settlement. The former was known in ancient India and the Islamic world, whilst numerous examples of the latter can be found in ancient Greece, in China, among the Arabian tribes, in maritime customary law in medieval Europe, and in Papal practice..."