A Rule of Law View on the Relations of International Courts and Tribunals

Abstract

The article questions the manner in which international courts and tribunals (ICTs) currently approach the normative production of regimes outside their own, which can best be described as an attitude of polite indifference. It argues that such attitude on the part of ICTs is detrimental to the formal rule of law at the international plane, and in turn undermines the capacity of ICTs to coordinate the actions of the addressees that they have in common. It further makes the claim that the extent to which ICTs advance the formal rule of law at the international plane can be one of the relevant normative factors in the broader assessment of their legitimacy. Against this backdrop, the article offers a tentative ideal framework for the relations of ICTs and their underlying regimes which is attuned to furthering the formal rule of law. To do so, it draws inspiration from the restraints that political public reason theories prescribe for the public domain, and specifies principles of cooperation for ICTs, envisaged as a community of international legal institutions.

Keywords: international law, international courts and tribunals, legal authority, public reason