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Legitimacy, Authority, and Performance: Contemporary Anxieties of International Courts and Tribunals

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Legitimacy and International Courts. Edited by NienkeGrossman, Harlan GrantCohen, AndreasFøllesdal, and GeirUlfstein. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Pp. viii, 387. Index.
The Legitimacy of International Trade Courts and Tribunals. Edited by RobertHowse, HélèneRuiz-Fabri, GeirUlfstein, and Michelle Q.Zang. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Pp. xi, 533. Index.
The Performance of International Courts and Tribunals. Edited by TheresaSquatrito, Oran R.Young, AndreasFøllesdal, and GeirUlfstein. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Pp. xix, 450. Index.

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Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2020

Cesare P.R. Romano
Cesare P.R. Romano*
Affiliation:
Professor of Law, W. Joseph Ford Fellow, Loyola Law School, Los Angeles. Affiliated Senior Research Fellow, iCourts (Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen).
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Extract

This review essay examines four edited volumes released in 2018 that address questions concerning the “legitimacy,” “authority,” and “performance” of international courts and tribunals (ICs). Each of the four volumes has a somewhat different focus.

Type
Review Essay
Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 114 , Issue 1 , January 2020 , pp. 149 - 163
Copyright
Copyright © 2020 by The American Society of International Law

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References

1 Legitimacy and International Courts (Nienke Grossman, Harlan Grant Cohen, Andreas Føllesdal & Geir Ulfstein eds., 2018) (hereinafter Legitimacy). Nienke Grossman is a professor of law and co-director of the Center for International and Comparative Law at the University of Baltimore School of Law. Harlan Grant Cohen is the Gabriel M. Wilner/UGA Foundation Professor in International Law and faculty co-director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center at the University of Georgia School of Law. Andreas Føllesdal is a professor of philosophy at the University of Oslo Faculty of Law and director of PluriCourts. Geir Ulfstein is a professor of law at the University of Oslo Faculty of Law and deputy director of PluriCourts.

2 The Legitimacy of International Trade Courts and Tribunals (Robert Howse, Hélène Ruiz-Fabri, Geir Ulfstein & Michelle Q. Zang eds., 2018) (hereinafter Legitimacy of ITCs). Robert Howse is the Lloyd C. Nelson Professor of International Law at NYU School of Law. Hélène Ruiz-Fabri is the director of the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for International, European and Regulatory Procedural Law. Michelle Q. Zhang is a professor of law at the University of Oslo Faculty of Law.

3 The Performance of International Courts and Tribunals (Theresa Squatrito, Oran R. Young, Andreas Føllesdal & Geir Ulfstein. eds., 2018) (hereinafter Performance). Theresa Squatrito is an assistant professor at The London School of Economics and Political Science. Oran R. Young is a distinguished professor emeritus at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management.

4 See, e.g., Yuval Shany, Assessing the Effectiveness of International Courts (2014); Constanze Schulte, Compliance with Decisions of the International Court of Justice (2005).

5 Gutner, Tamar & Thompson, Alexander, The Politics of IO Performance: A Framework, 5 Rev. Int'l Org. 227 (2010)Google Scholar.

6 International Court Authority (Karen J. Alter, Laurence R. Helfer & Mikael Rask Madsen eds., 2018) (hereinafter Authority). Karen J. Alter is professor political science at Northwestern University. Laurence R. Helfer is the Harry R. Chadwick, Sr. Professor of Law at Duke University School of Law. Mikael Rask Madsen is the director for iCourts, Center for Excellence for International Courts and a professor of law at the University of Copenhagen Faculty of Law.

7 PluriCourts – Centre for the Study of the Legitimate Roles of the Judiciary in the Global Order, at https://www.jus.uio.no/pluricourts/english [hereinafter PluriCourts].

8 Id.

9 Id.

10 Id.

11 Id.

12 PluriCourts, People, at https://www.jus.uio.no/pluricourts/english/people.

13 iCourts – The Danish National Research Foundation's Centre of Excellence for International Courts, at https://jura.ku.dk/icourts [hereinafter iCourts].

14 iCourts, About iCourts, at https://jura.ku.dk/icourts/about.

15 iCourts, Staff, at https://jura.ku.dk/icourts/staff.

16 I need to disclose that I have close ties with both centers and series. I am senior research fellow at iCourts and teach every summer at the joint PluriCourts/iCourts Summer School. I am editor of the Oxford University Press series on international courts and I am often requested by Cambridge University Press to review submissions of manuscripts for publication in their dedicated international courts series. That being said, I played no role in the making of the books here reviewed nor in their publication process other than green lighting International Court Authority for publication in the Oxford University Press series.

17 South-West Africa Cases (Eth. v. S. Afr.; Liber. v. S. Afr.), Second Phase, 1966 ICJ Rep. 6 (July 18).

18 Mark A. Pollack, The Legitimacy of the European Court of Justice: Normative Debates and Empirical Evidence, in Legitimacy, supra note 1, at 143.

19 Andrea K. Bjorklund, The Legitimacy of the International Centre for Investment Disputes, in Legitimacy, supra note 1, at 234.

20 Alexandra Huneeus, Legitimacy and Jurisdictional Overlap: The ICC and the Inter-American Court in Colombia, in Legitimacy, supra note 1, at 114.

21 Nienke Grossman, Solomonic Judgments and the Legitimacy of the International Court of Justice, in Legitimacy, supra note 1, at 43.

22 Geir Ulfstein, The Human Rights Treaty Bodies and Legitimacy Challenges, in Legitimacy, supra note 1, at 284.

23 See Part IV infra.

24 Joseph Raz, The Morality of Freedom (1986).

25 Buchanan, Allen & Keohane, Robert O., The Legitimacy of Global Governance Institutions, 20 Ethics & Int'l Aff. 405 (2006)Google Scholar.

26 Grossman, Nienke, The Normative Legitimacy of International Courts, 86 Temple L. Rev. 61 (2013)Google Scholar.

27 Mortimer N.S. Sellers, Democracy, Justice, and the Legitimacy of International Courts, in Legitimacy, supra note 1, at 342.

28 Andreas Føllesdal, Constitutionalization, Not Democratization: How to Assess the Legitimacy of International Courts, in Legitimacy,supra note 1, at 307.

29 Sellers, supra note 27.

30 Yuval Shany, Stronger Together? Legitimacy and Effectiveness of International Courts as Mutually Reinforcing or Undermining Notions, in Legitimacy,supra note 1, at 354.

31 See, e.g., Rilka Dragneva, The Case of the Economic Court of the Commonwealth of Independent States, in Legitimacy of ITCs,supra note 2, at 286; Ousseni Illy, The WAEMU (Western Africa Economic and Monetary Union) Court of Justice, in Legitimacy of ITCs,supra note 2, at 349.

32 Donald C. Pogue, The United States Court of International Trade, in Legitimacy of ITCs,supra note 2, at 182; Maureen Irish, The Federal Courts of Canada, in Legitimacy of ITCs,supra note 2, at 202.

33 The standard definition of an international court or tribunal (also known as “international adjudicative bodies” is: (1) international governmental organizations, or bodies and procedures of international governmental organizations, that (2) hear cases where one of the parties is, or could be, a state or an international organization, and that (3) are composed of independent adjudicators, who (4) decide the question(s) brought before them on the basis of international law (5) following pre-determined rules of procedure, and (6) issue binding decisions. Cesare Romano, Karen Alter & Yuval Shany, Mapping International Adjudicative Bodies, the Issues, and the Players, in Oxford Handbook of International Adjudication, at 6 (Cesare Romano, Karen Alter & Yuval Shany eds., 2014).

34 Citing Gutner and Thompson, supra note 5, at 231.

35 Shany, supra note 4.

36 Performance, supra note 3, at 15–18.

37 Id. at 6.

38 Theresa Squatrito, Measurements and Methods: Opportunities for Future Research, in Performance,supra note 3, 373.

39 Oran R. Young, Theresa Squatrito, Andreas Føllesdal & Geir Ulfstein,What We Know So Far, in Performance, supra note 3, at 406.

40 See, e.g., Karen J. Alter, The New Terrain of International Law, Courts, Politics, Rights (2014).

41 Young, Squatrito, Føllesdal & Ulfstein, supra note 39, at 417.

42 See, e.g., Abbott, Kenneth W., Keohane, Robert O., Moravcsik, Andrew, Slaughter, Anne-Marie & Snidal, Duncan, The Concept of Legalization, lvo Int'l Org. 401 (2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 See, e.g., The Judicialization of International Law (Andreas Føllesdal & Geir Ulfstein eds., 2018); Alter, Karen J., Hafner-Burton, Emilie Marie & Helfer, Laurence, Theorizing the Judicialization of International Relations, 63 Int'l Stud. Q. 449 (2019)Google Scholar.

44 GA Res. 217 A (III), Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Dec. 10, 1948).

45 Performance, supra note 3, at 426.

46 Id.

47 Id. at 427.

48 Cesare Romano, Karen Alter & Yuval Shany, Editors’ Preface, in Oxford Handbook of International Adjudication,supra note 33, at vii.

49 See, e.g., Karen Alter & Lawrence Helfer, Transplanting International Courts: Law and Politics of the Andean Tribunal of Justice (2017); Alter, Karen, Helfer, Lawrence & Gathii, James, Backlash Against International Courts in West, East and Southern Africa, 27 Eur. J. of Int'l L. 293 (2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Alter, Karen, Helfer, Lawrence & McAllister, Jacqueline, A New International Human Rights Court for West Africa: The Court of Justice for the Economic Community of West African States, 107 AJIL 737 (2017)Google Scholar.

50 See, e.g., Peters, Birgit & Schaffer, Johan Karlsson, The Turn to Authority Beyond States, 4 Transnat'l Legal Theory 315 (2011)Google Scholar; Marmor, Andrei, An Institutional Conception of Authority, 39 Phil. & Pub. Aff. 238 (2011)Google Scholar; Zürn, Michael, Binder, Martin & Ecker-Ehrhardt, Matthias, International Authority and its Politicization, 4 Int'l Theory 69 (2012)Google Scholar.

51 Andreas Føllesdal, Power or Authority; Actions or Beliefs, in Authority,supra note 6, at 412.

52 Ian Hurd, Authority and International Courts: A Comment on “Content-Independent” Social Science, in Authority,supra note 6, at 422.

53 Authority,supra note 6, at 365–460.

54 Karen Alter, Laurence Helfer and Mikael Rask Madsen, How Context Shapes the Authority of International Courts, in Authority, supra note 6, at 24, 36 –58.

55 Authority, supra note 6, at 15.

56 James T. Gathii, The East African Court of Justice: Human Rights and Business Actors Compared, in Authority, supra note 6, at 59.

57 Solomon Ebobrah, The ECOWAS Community Court of Justice: A Dual Mandate with Skewed Authority, in Authority, supra note 6, at 82.

58 Claire Moore Dickerson, The OHADA Common Court of Justice and Arbitration: Its Authority in the Formal and Informal Economy, in Authority, supra note 6, at 103.

59 E. Tendayi Achiume, The SADC Tribunal: Sociopolitical Dissonance and the Authority of International Courts, in Authority, supra note 6, at 124.

60 Salvatore Caserta & Mikael Rask Madsen, The Caribbean Court of Justice: A Regional Integration and Postcolonial Court, in Authority, supra note 6, at 149.

61 Karen Alter & Laurence Helfer, The Andean Tribunal of Justice: From Washington Consensus to Regional Crisis, in Authority, supra note 6, at 173.

62 Emilia J. Powell, The International Court of Justice and Islamic Law States: Territory and Diplomatic Immunity, in Authority, supra note 6, at 277.

63 Karen Alter, Laurence Helfer & Mikael Rask Madsen, Conclusion: Context, Authority, Power, in Authority, supra note 6, at 435

64 Legitimacy of Unseen Actors in International Adjudication (Freya Baetens ed., 2019).

65 Madsen, Mikael Rask, Cebulak, Pola & Wiebusch, Micha, Backlash Against International Courts: Explaining the Forms and Patterns of Resistance to International Courts, 14 Int'l J. L. in Context 90 (2018)Google Scholar.

66 See special issue of the New York University Journal of International Law and Politics on the proliferation of ICs. 31 N.Y.U. J. Int'l L. & Pol. 679 (1998–1999).