The Promise and Limits of International Courts and Tribunals – Exploring the Conditions for Effective International Adjudication

Objective

The proposed project focuses on the factors that influence the effectiveness of international courts in light of the different social roles that they play in international life. The research hypothesis is that different international courts offer unique combinations of dispute settlement, law-interpretation and law-application services to diverse constituencies, in regard to varying subject areas and pursuant to changing jurisdictional structures. Hence, previous research work on the topic that sought to develop 'one-size-fits all' assessments of efficiency and calls for reform, needs to be supplemented with a more nuanced approach that captures the linkage between the courts' constitutive ethos, their social and political functions and potential impact. As a result, there is need to identify and consider more specific efficiency-enhancing elements and strategies that could help different courts in fulfilling their missions more effectively (e.g. judicial independence, dialogue with other courts, procedural innovations, etc.). The identification of factors influencing the effectiveness of international courts would be facilitated through theoretic research of the law and practice applied by the different courts by a team of junior researchers (post-doctoral, PhD and MA students), headed by a principal investigator, and more practical-oriented research work involving on-site visits, interviews with court officials and litigants and analysis of statistical data. The project will provide national and international decision makers with better tools for measuring the performance of international courts and will serve as the basis for improved decisions relating to the establishment and operation of international courts (e.g. whether to establish new courts, budgetary allocations, selection of cases to be referred, procedural reforms, etc.).

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.

• social sciences law

Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

• ADJUDICATION
• DISPUTE-SETTLEMENT
• EFFECTIVENESS
• INTERNATIONAL COURTS
• adjudication
• dispute-settlement
• effectiveness
• international courts
• international law

Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

• FP7-IDEAS-ERC - Specific programme: "Ideas" implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007 to 2013)

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

• ERC-SG-SH1 - ERC Starting Grant - Individuals, institutions and markets

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

ERC-2007-StG
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

ERC-SG - ERC Starting Grant

Host institution

Beneficiaries (1)