Legitimacy and International Courts

Harlan Grant Cohen holds the Gabriel M. Wilner/UGA Foundation Professorship in International Law at the University of Georgia School of Law. Andreas Føllesdal is Professor of Political Philosophy in the Faculty of Law and Co-director of PluriCourts, a Centre for the Study of the Legitimate Roles of the Judiciary in the Global Order, at the Universitetet i Oslo. Nienke Grossman is an Associate Professor of Law and Deputy Director of the Center for International and Comparative Law at the University of Baltimore School of Law. Geir Ulfstein is Professor of International Law in the Department of Public and International Law and Co-director of PluriCourts, a Centre for the Study of the Legitimate Roles of the Judiciary in the Global Order, at the Universitetet i Oslo.

1. Introduction; Part I. The Legitimacy of Particular Dispute Settlement Mechanisms: 2. Solomonic judgements and the legitimacy of the international court of justice; 3. The global-local dilemma and the ICC's legitimacy; 4. Justice as legitimacy in the European Court of Human Rights; 5. Legitimacy and jurisdictional overlap: the ICC and the inter-American court in Colombia; 6. The legitimacy of the European Court of Justice: normative debates and empirical evidence; 7. The international tribunal for the law of the sea: seeking the legitimacy of state consent; 8. Who decides matters: the legitimacy capital of WTO adjudicators versus ICSID arbitrators; 9. The legitimacy of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes; 10. The Human Rights Treaty Bodies and legitimacy challenges; Part II. Legitimacy - Cross-Cutting Issues: 11. Constitutionalization, not democratization: how to assess the legitimacy of international courts; 12. Democracy, justice and the legitimacy of international courts; 13. Stronger together? Legitimacy and effectiveness of international courts as mutually reinforcing or undermining notions.