Expert Rule? Judges, Lawyers, and the Practices of Interpretation in International Criminal Law

Project Information

EaRL

Grant agreement ID: 748114

DOI

10.3030/748114

Project terminated on 14 January 2020

EC signature date 20 March 2017

Start date 1 September 2018

End date 31 August 2020

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 200 194,80

EU contribution

€ 200 194,80

Coordinated by

KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET
Denmark

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - EaRL (Expert Rule? Judges, Lawyers, and the Practices of Interpretation in International Criminal Law)

Reporting period: 2018-09-01 to 2020-08-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Since the end of the Cold War, the number of international courts has increased significantly, indicating a growing judicialization of global governance. At the same time, international judges have begun to change and potentially even create law through their decisions. In international criminal law, a particularly prominent example, international judges repeatedly describe the development of international criminal law as one of their main achievements. But have these courts been able to deliver on this objective? How far do judicial interpretations matter in global governance more broadly? In a political context in which international courts have come under increasing pressure in recent years, the project therefore adds important insights into the broader relevance of the decisions that these courts have rendered beyond the context of the individual case at hand.

To answer these questions, the project had three main objectives:
1. Use legal theory to advance International Relations’ theorizing of the interpretation and development of international criminal law in practice;
2. Provide new empirical insights on the interpretive authority of international criminal courts in global governance; and
3. Research which sources of authority international courts have relied on to justify their interpretations of international criminal law.

Methodologically, the project drew on a combination of qualitative and quantitative forms of content analysis, network analysis, qualitative interviews, and legal interpretive methods.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Over the course of the 16 months of the fellowship, I presented my research at conferences across the disciplines of International Relations and International Law in Finland, Canada, the United Kingdom and Poland. I furthermore organized a one-day academic workshop at the University of Copenhagen that brought together scholars from International Relations and International Law to explore questions of legitimacy and (de-)legitimation in global governance.

To gain new empirical insights into the broader relevance of the decisions of international criminal courts, and how the legal authority of these courts is constructed, maintained and challenged in practice, I undertook three research visits to The Hague to conduct in-depth interviews with judges and legal officers at international criminal courts, as well as with diplomats and civil society representatives. Based on this empirical material, I was able to, among others, address the question of how the judgements of international criminal courts and tribunals have been received and disseminated.

Finally, I entered into a new, interdisciplinary research collaboration with a legal scholar and a data scientist to use case-law citation network analysis to compare how the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the European Court of Human Rights draw on their previous case law to justify their decisions.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Taken together, the fellowship produced five main results:

1. Relying on legal theory, it analyzed and traced empirically how the practices of legal interpretation can lead to the development of legal meaning.
2. The project investigated empirically how a broader interpretive community including government officials and staff at non-governmental organizations and other international and internationalized courts engages with these judgements to inquire into the broader relevance of these decisions.
3. It developed a methodological toolbox for studying the practices of legal interpretation in international law empirically.
4. The project contributed to the ongoing debate on International Relations’ ‘practice turn’ by theorizing how routinized behavior may lead to innovation in legal meaning, and by offering a critique of a recent contribution in this area.
5. Finally, it established the empirical and conceptual basis for a new, collaborative project comparing how the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the European Court of Human Rights relied on and built their own case law to justify their legal interpretations.

To disseminate the results of my research beyond a group of academic peers, I repeatedly drew on my research when teaching undergraduate, graduate, as well as PhD students at the University of Copenhagen. Furthermore, I published some of my reflections on legitimacy in and through law in global governance as a blog post. Finally, I visited a high school in Germany to discuss my research and the topics of human rights and international courts more generally with students, as well as the option of studying and living in another EU member state.

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