This chapter discusses how international courts operate, and how their jurisdiction is dependent on consent of states. It goes systematically through notions of jurisdiction, admissibility, interim measures, and compensation, ending with a discussion of advisory opinions and the possibilities for judicial review

Chapter 6 progresses away from aesthetic judgements in the administration of an international environmental treaty to aesthetic representations made by states in the context of a treaty being enforced. Specifically, it analyses photographs submitted to the International Court of Justice in the Whaling in the Antarctic case by the disputing parties, Australia and Japan. That dispute concerned an exception to bans on whaling for scientific research under the Whaling Convention, one of three treaties examined in the book. The chapter identifies photographs of whales used by the parties before considering their potential role as evidence and as rhetoric. Acknowledging formal practices of the Court that treat images as evidence, it argues that aesthetic theory must be employed to understand the photographs as representations of aesthetic values in law rather than as records of fact. Visual art from Australia and Japan is then analysed to construct meanings of the aesthetic value of whales from the photographs in ways relevant to the parties’ claims. The chapter argues that the Court should recognise the images used in proceedings for their relevance to interpretation of the law.

The final chapter 8 considers the implications of an aesthetic analysis of images for international legal practice. International bodies making decisions under the three treaties examined in the book conflate and displace aesthetic value in favour of other environmental values, risking the integrity of their decisions and, ultimately, the protection of the environment for its aesthetic value under international environmental law. Photographs could be formally acknowledged for their relevance to the interpretation of the treaties and used in decision-making processes to conceive aesthetic appreciation of the environment in ways important for all nation states. They can encapsulate a sensorial experience of the natural environment shaped by imagination, emotion and knowledge from different cultures. But a critical analysis of such images is also important to distinguish aesthetic value from other environmental values such as natural beauty, cultural value and ethical value. An accommodation of aesthetic concepts and methods to develop meanings from images for the interpretation of international environmental treaties could also be taken up for other fields of international law.

Although islands have long been geologically, ecologically, economically and strategically linked to oceans, they are now juridically linked to them, also. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea grants states the right to claim exclusive economic zones projecting up to 200 nautical miles from their coasts, and continental shelves projecting up to 350 nautical miles. Bird islands have been transformed into anchors of pelagic sovereignty, leading to fierce diplomatic disputes over the legal definition of island-ness.

Nature conservation has also served as one means of forging new legal connections between islands and oceans, for in the past few years pelagic states have established a series of vast oceanic reserves anchored by bird islands. The US has expanded Roosevelt’s Hawaiian Islands Reservation into the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, and Britain has established the Chagos Islands Marine Protected Area in an attempt to protect the US military base on Diego Garcia. It is hard to find a more chilling example of nature conservation as a tactic for conserving sovereignty over territory.

This chapter explores third-party mediation and peacekeeping. Mediation, along with arbitration and adjudication, is a form of peacemaking. Peacekeeping means maintaining durable peace after conflict has ended. The UN is one of several kinds of actors that engage in peacekeeping missions. They leverage the costs belligerents would pay if they return to war, provide information, reduce uncertainty, and provide political cover to facilitate political concessions. Also discussed in the chapter are peacebuilding efforts, including developing the proper political, legal, social and economic infrastructure to stabilize the security environment. Challenges for third parties seeking to engage successfully in peacekeeping and peacemaking include the difficulties they face in providing long-term incentives for peace, the possibility of distorting information flows such that peace is less stable, and being sensitive to local contexts. The chapter applies many of its concepts to a quantitative study of the causes of peacekeeper sexual exploitation and abuse, and a case study of third-party involvement during the conflicts in the Great Lakes region of Africa in the 1990s and 2000s.

When a treaty prescribes how disputes can be settled, it usually provides for a preliminary phase involving direct negotiations or consultations. In the case of bilateral agreements, more binding mechanisms tend to be found in agreements with more specific obligations, or those directly affecting individual interests, such as trade. Otherwise, bilateral agreements will often specify that disputes are to be resolved by the diplomatic channel or other avenue of voluntary settlement. Both bilateral and multilateral treaties may provide for conciliation or mediation. The parties may, however, wish to resort to compulsory binding settlement. The two principal features are a prior agreement to submit disputes to a third party, and a provision that the decision of the third party is legally binding on the parties in dispute. Procedures of arbitration and judicial settlement, including the International Court of Justice, are analysed. In respect of remedies, the chapter examines countermeasures and the principles underlying them, sacrosanct obligations and necessity.

International organisations include global organisations such as the United Nations and regional organisations such as the European Union. The chapter examines constituent instruments and their interpretation, membership (which may include non-state entities) and withdrawal, including the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union. International organisations have the capacity to enter into treaties but may only conclude agreements in those areas in which they are competent to act. The Vienna Convention of 1986 adapts the rules of the 1969 Convention to apply to international organisations, but it is not yet in force. The chapter examines bodies which play a role in recommending or negotiating treaty texts (including the United Nations, UN Sixth Committee and the International Law Commission) and those which play a role in settling disputes (such as the International Court of Justice) and in monitoring compliance (such as the Human Rights Committee). It looks at special cases, including the OSCE, Commonwealth and European Union.

The chapter traces the origins of the ICJ in its predecessor, the PCIJ, and then considers the Court’s core functions: deciding the disputes submitted to it and exercising its advisory functions. It also critically examines the Court’s functions in finding and developing the law, and in maintaining international peace and security.

This chapter looks at reciprocity in the jurisdiction of international courts and tribunals, and the differences in the role reciprocity plays in inter-State dispute settlement, and in dispute settlement procedures that involve non-State entities such as individuals. It looks at the well-developed role that reciprocity plays in the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice, before turning to the system of compulsory dispute settlement in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The chapter then analyzes three types of instance which concern individuals: the International Criminal Court; human rights courts and complaint mechanisms; and investment tribunals, specifically the issue of the extension of jurisdiction on the basis of an MFN clause.

The story opens in the solemn setting of the Great Hall of Justice, where the President of the ICJ is about to deliver the Court’s judgment on a long and difficult dispute. Among the attendees is Sophie Richter, a clerk to ICJ judge Jürgen Lehmann. Sophie ponders about the many steps it took to get to this day: all the actors, visible and invisible, who contributed to the judicial process; all the interactions that occurred at every turn; and all the possible realities that were discarded along the way. The issuance of today’s judgment is, in fact, the end of a long and strenuous journey, which will be chronicled through successive flashbacks in the following chapters. Having set the stage for the narrative, the chapter introduces the central themes of the book. First, it reviews existing literature on international adjudication, including formalist treatises, critical accounts, and legitimacy-oriented analyses. Second, it invites the reader to consider the importance of everyday socio-professional practices in the definition of international judicial outcomes.

The second chapter investigates the original model underlying the ECJ’s procedural and organisational law by describing the mandate and the procedural and organisational setup of the ECJ’s predecessor, the Court of the European Coal and Steel Community. The chapter shows that the Coal and Steel Court squarely fit into the liberal model of court decision-making developed in the first chapter of the book. Its primary role was to protect the rights and interests of individual litigants, notably the Member States. Accordingly, the Coal and Steel Court was equipped with a procedural and organisational law borrowed from the International Court of Justice, steered towards the equal representation of the Member States in the proceedings. The chapter describes in detail how the idea of Member State representation coined the conception of judges as state representatives, a narrow understanding of who may participate in court proceedings and a design of the deliberations that aimed to give all judges equal influence.