We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 August 2016
In a post-Cold War era characterised by globalisation and deep interdependence, the actions of national governments increasingly have an effect beyond their own territorial borders. Moreover, key agents of global governance – international organisations and their bureaucracies, non-state actors and private agents – exercise pervasive forms of authority. Due to these shifts, it is widely noted that world politics suffers from a democratic deficit. This article contributes to work on global democracy by looking at the role of international courts. Building upon an original dataset covering the 24 international courts in existence since the end of the Second World War, we argue that international courts are able to advance democratic values and shape democratic practices beyond the state. They can do so by fostering equal participation, accountability, and public justification that link individuals directly with sites of transnational authority. We contend that the ability of international courts to promote these values is conditioned by institutional design choices concerning access rules, review powers, and provisions regarding judicial reason-giving. We canvass these design features of different international courts and assess the promises and pitfalls for global democratisation. We conclude by linking our analysis of international courts and global democratisation with debates about the legitimation and politicisation of global governance at large.
1 Higgott, Richard and Erman, Eva, ‘Deliberative global governance and the question of legitimacy: What can we learn from the WTO?’, Review of International Studies, 36:2 (2010), pp. 449–470 Google Scholar. See also Dingwerth, Klaus, ‘Global democracy and the democratic minimum: Why a procedural account alone is insufficient’, European Journal of International Relations, 20:4 (2014), pp. 1124–1147 Google Scholar.
2 Held, David, ‘Cosmopolitanism: Globalization tamed?’, Review of International Studies, 29:4 (2003), pp. 465–480 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 Scholte, Jan Aart, ‘Reinventing global democracy’, European Journal of International Relations, 20:1 (2014), pp. 3–28 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 Marchetti, Raffaele, ‘A matter of drawing boundaries: Global democracy and international exclusion’, Review of International Studies, 34:2 (2008), pp. 207–224 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 Archibugi, Daniele and Held, David (eds), Cosmopolitan Democracy: An Agenda for a New World Order (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995)Google Scholar.
6 Alter, Karen J., The New Terrain of International Law: Courts, Politics, Rights (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), p. 75 Google Scholar.
7 von Bogdandy, Armin, ‘The democratic legitimacy of international courts: a conceptual framework’, Theoretical Inquiries in Law, 14:2 (2013), p. 370 Google Scholar.
8 Other scholars have made significant strides in connecting some strands of normative (moral) theorising with International Relations literature. See, for instance, Erskine, Toni, ‘Locating responsibility: the problem of moral agency in International Relations’, in Christian Reus-Smit and Duncan Snidal (eds), Oxford Handbook of International Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 699–707 Google Scholar. This article is the first to look specifically at the nexus of ICs and normative values of global democratisation.
9 For a recent and comprehensive overview, see Lang, Anthony F., International Political Theory: An Introduction (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015)Google Scholar.
10 Sangiovanni, Andrea, ‘Justice and priority of politics to morality’, Journal of Political Philosophy, 15:2 (2008), pp. 137–164 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Valentini, Laura and Torresi, Tiziana, ‘Introduction – international law and global justice: a happy marriage’, Review of International Studies, 37:5 (2011), pp. 2035–2041 Google Scholar.
11 Walzer, Michael, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument With Historical Illustrations (4th edn, New York: Basic Books, 2006)Google Scholar. See also Lazar, Seth, ‘Necessity and non-combatant immunity’, Review of International Studies, 40:1 (2014), pp. 53–76 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
12 Little, Adrian and Macdonald, Kate, ‘Pathways to global democracy: Escaping the statist imaginary’, Review of International Studies, 39:4 (2013), pp. 789–813 Google Scholar.
13 Held, ‘Cosmopolitanism: globalization tamed?; Dingwerth, ‘Global democracy and the democratic minimum’. See also Schaffer, Johan Karlsson, ‘The boundaries of transnational democracy: alternatives to the all-affected principle’, Review of International Studies, 38:2 (2012), pp. 321–342 Google Scholar.
14 Dellmuth, Lisa and Tallberg, Jonas, ‘The social legitimacy of international organisations: Interest representation, institutional performance, and confidence extrapolation in the United Nations’, Review of International Studies, 41:3 (2015), pp. 451–475 Google Scholar.
15 Marchetti, ‘A matter of drawing boundaries’.
16 For an overview, see Bray, Daniel and Slaughter, Steven, Global Democratic Theory: Problems and Possibilities (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2015)Google Scholar.
17 Held, David, Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995)Google Scholar.
18 Marchetti, Raffaele, Global Democracy: For and Against — Ethical Theory, Institutional Design, and Social Struggles (Abingdon: Routledge, 2008)Google Scholar; Scheuerman, William E., ‘Cosmopolitanism and the world state’, Review of International Studies, 40:3 (2014), pp. 419–441 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
19 Dryzek, John S., Deliberative Democracy and Beyond: Liberals, Critics, Contestation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)Google Scholar. See also Bohman, James, ‘Democratising the global order: From communicative freedom to communicative power’, Review of International Studies, 36:2 (2010), pp. 431–447 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Newell, Peter, ‘Democratising biotechnology? Deliberation, participation and social regulation in a neo-liberal world’, Review of International Studies, 36:2 (2010), pp. 471–491 Google Scholar.
20 See respectively: Keohane, Robert, Macedo, Steven, and Moravcsik, Andrew, ‘Democracy-enhancing multilateralism’, International Organization, 63:1 (2009), pp. 1–31 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Squatrito, Theresa, ‘Conditions of democracy-enhancing multilateralism: Expansion of rights protections in Europe?’, Review of International Studies, 38:4 (2012), pp. 707–733 Google Scholar; Negri, Antonio and Hardt, Michael, Empire (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2000)Google Scholar; Bray, Daniel, ‘Pragmatic ethics and the will to believe in cosmopolitanism’, International Theory, 5:3 (2011), pp. 446–476 Google Scholar; Shaffer, ‘The boundaries of transnational democracy’.
21 Little and Macdonald, ‘Pathways to global democracy’; Koenig-Archibugi, Mathias, ‘Is global democracy possible?’, European Journal of International Relations, 17:3 (2010), pp. 519–542 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kuyper, Jonathan W., ‘Global democratization and international regime complexity’, European Journal of International Relations, 20:3 (2014), pp. 620–646 Google Scholar.
22 See Valentini, Laura, ‘Ideal vs non-ideal theory: a conceptual map’, Philosophy Compass, 7:9 (2012), pp. 654–664 Google Scholar. There are also interesting connections with ‘practice-dependent’ thought in justice debates. Practice-dependent arguments maintain that the ‘scope, content, and justifications of justice depends on the structure and form of practices that the conception is intended to cover’. See Sangiovanni, ‘Justice and priority of politics to morality’, p. 138. Transposing this argument to global democracy would entail that the appropriate normative values and institutional designs necessary depend on the shape, form, and authority of global governance itself. While we find connections with practice-dependence and non-ideal theory in global justice intriguing, exploring those connections lies outside the scope of this article.
23 We use the term ‘global democracy’ to refer to proposals or blueprints, and ‘global democratisation’ to signify the ongoing attainment of democratic values.
24 Bexell, Magdelena, Tallberg, Jonas, and Uhlin, Anders, ‘Democracy in global governance: the promise and pitfalls of transnational actors’, Global Governance, 16:1 (2010), pp. 85–86 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
25 Dingwerth, ‘Global democracy and the democratic minimum’, p. 1141. We are aware that Dingwerth also highlights the importance of moving beyond purely procedural assessments of global democratisation. As we discuss, there are substantive limitations to the attainment of each value that we draw out. As such, we concur with Dingwerth’s general position but continue to emphasise the importance of striving for normative values.
26 Macdonald, Terry and Macdonald, Kate, ‘Non-electoral accountability in global politics: Strengthening democratic control within the global garment industry’, European Journal of International Law, 17:1 (2006), pp. 89–119 Google Scholar.
27 Ibid., p. 104.
28 Krisch, Nico, Beyond Constitutionalism: The Pluralist Structure of Postnational Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 78–88 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
29 On this debate, see Benhabib, Seyla, ‘Claiming rights across borders: International human rights and democratic sovereignty’, American Political Science Review, 103:4 (2009), pp. 691–704 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
30 These, as well as other limitations, are fleshed out in the third section examining the institutional design features related to each value.
31 Macdonald and Macdonald, ‘Non-electoral accountability’.
32 Grant, Ruth W. and Keohane, Robert, ‘Accountability and abuses of power in world politics’, American Political Science Review, 99:1 (2005), p. 29 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Kuyper, ‘Global democratization and international regime complexity’, pp. 620–46.
33 Forst, Rainer, The Right to Justification: Elements of a Constructivist Theory of Justice (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011)Google Scholar. See also Newell, Peter, ‘Democratising biotechnology? Deliberation, participation and social regulation in a neo-liberal world’, Review of International Studies, 36:2 (2010), pp. 471–491 Google Scholar.
34 Habermas, Jürgen, Between Facts and Norms (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996)Google Scholar; Dryzek, Deliberative Democracy.
35 Little and Macdonald, ‘Pathways to global democracy’.
36 Erman, Eva, ‘In search of democratic agency in deliberative governance’, European Journal of International Relations, 19:4 (2012), pp. 847–868 Google Scholar.
37 Macdonald and Macdonald, ‘Non-electoral accountability’. However, cf. Shaffer, ‘The boundaries of transnational democracy’; Bohman, ‘Democratising the global order’; Valentini, Laura, ‘No global demos, no global democracy? A systematization and critique’, Perspectives on Politics, 12:4 (2014), pp. 789–807 Google Scholar.
38 Or, to use Robert Goodin’s phrase, global democracy is ‘in the beginning’. See Goodin, Robert, ‘Global democracy: In the beginning’, International Theory, 2:2 (2010), pp. 175–209 Google Scholar.
39 See, for instance, Wiener, Antje, Lang, Anthony F., Tully, James, Poiares Maduro, Miguel, and Kumm, Mattias, ‘Global constitutionalism: Human rights, democracy and the rule of law’, Global Constitutionalism, 1:1 (2012), pp. 1–15 Google Scholar. See also Milewicz, Karolina, Bächtiger, André, and Nothdurft, Arne, ‘Constitutional pluralism or constitutional unity? An empirical study of international commitment (1945–2007)’, Review of International Studies, 36:2 (2010), pp. 305–336 Google Scholar.
40 For overviews, see Dunoff, Jeffrey L. and Trachtman, Joel P. (eds), Ruling the World? Constitutionalism, International: Law, and Global Governance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Teubner, Gunther and Fischer-Lescano, Andreas, ‘Regime-collisions: the vain search for legal unity in the fragmentation of global law’, Michigan Journal of International Law, 25:4 (2004), pp. 999–1045 Google Scholar. See also Berman, Paul Schiff, ‘Global legal pluralism’, Southern California Law Review, 80:6 (2007), pp. 1155–1237 Google Scholar.
41 On the former, see Fassbender, Bardo, ‘We the peoples of the United Nations: Constituent power and constitutional form in international law’, in Neil Walker and Martin Loughlin (eds), The Paradox of Constitutionalism: Constituent Power and Constitutional Form (Oxford: Oxford University, 2007), pp. 269–290 Google Scholar. On the latter, see Krisch, Beyond Constitutionalism.
42 Romano, Cesare, Alter, Karen, and Shany, Yuval, ‘Mapping international courts and tribunals, the issues and players’, in Cesare Romano, Karen Alter, and Yuval Shany (eds), The Oxford Handbook of International Adjudication (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 6 Google Scholar. Permanence is not defined by whether the court itself is permanent, but whether the judges sit permanently and are not selected ad hoc by the parties to a dispute. Romano, Cesare, ‘A taxonomy of international rule of law institutions’, Journal of International Dispute Settlement, 2:1 (2011), p. 262 Google Scholar.
43 Prior to 1950, two international courts existed: the Permanent Court of International Justice (later replaced by the ICJ), and the Central American Court of Justice (operational 1908–18). Non-permanent international judicial proceedings prior to 1950 included the Nuremburg Trials (1945–6), the Tokyo Trials (1946–8), the ad hoc dispute settlement system of GATT established in 1947, and the Permanent Court of Arbitration established in 1899.
44 These six courts were the Andean Tribunal of Justice, the Benelux Court of Justice, the European Court of Justice (now the Court of Justice of the European Union), the International Court of Justice, the European Court of Human Rights, and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
45 Grossman, Nienke, ‘The normative legitimacy of international courts’, Temple Law Review, 86:1 (2013), pp. 61–106 Google Scholar.
46 Alter, The New Terrain of International Law, p. 75.
47 Helfer, Laurence, ‘The effectiveness of international adjudicators’, in Romano, Alter, and Shany (eds), The Oxford Handbook, p. 464 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
48 Burley, Anne-Marie and Mattli, Walter, ‘Europe before the court: a political theory of legal integration’, International Organization, 47:1 (1993), pp. 41–76 Google Scholar.
49 Bown, Chad, ‘On the economic success of GATT/WTO dispute settlement’, Review of Economic Statistics, 86:3 (2004), pp. 811–823 Google Scholar.
50 Jo, Hyeran and Simmons, Beth, ‘Can the International Criminal Court deter atrocity?’ (2014), available at: {http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2552820}Google Scholar; Nettelfield, Lara, Courting Democracy in Bosnia and Herzegovina: The Hague Tribunal’s Impact in a Postwar State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013)Google Scholar.
51 Hillebrecht, Courtney, Domestic Politics and International Human Rights Tribunals: The Problem of Compliance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014)Google Scholar.
52 Helfer, Laurence and Voeten, Erik, ‘International courts as agents of legal change: Evidence from LGBT rights in Europe’, International Organization, 68:1 (2014), pp. 77–110 Google Scholar.
53 Haye, Eve La, War Crimes in Internal Armed Conflict (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008)Google Scholar.
54 Shany, Yuval, ‘No longer a weak department of power? Reflections on the emergence of a new international judiciary’, European Journal of International Law, 20:1 (2009), pp. 73–91 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Alter, The New Terrain of International Law.
55 Cichowski, Rachel A., ‘Courts, rights and democratic participation’, Comparative Political Studies, 39:1 (2006), p. 55 Google Scholar. For a longer discussion, see Cichowski, Rachel A., The European Court and Civil Society: Litigation, Mobilization and Governance (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007)Google Scholar.
56 See Alter, The New Terrain of International Law; Cichowski, ‘Courts, rights and democratic participation’.
57 Keohane, Robert O., Moravcsik, Andrew, and Slaughter, Anne-Marie, ‘Legalized dispute resolution: Interstate and transnational’, International Organization, 54:3 (2000), pp. 457–488 Google Scholar.
58 Our sample of ICs corresponds with Alter’s; see Alter, The New Terrain of International Law. The Appendix provides a complete list of the ICs.
59 Previous data on access to ICs do not cover all four types. When speaking of international criminal tribunals one might also victim access, such as offering testimony. We do not include this in the coding because it does not have a direct equivalent in the non-criminal tribunals.
60 The connections between public justification and public participation rights are expanded upon below. Observer status, though, is a good example of how different democratic values intersect in supportive ways.
61 Proceedings of the World Trade Organization Appellate Body (WTO AB) can be open to the public upon agreement of the disputing parties. Otherwise, proceedings are closed to the public. Mackenzie, Ruth, Romano, Cesare, Sands, Philippe, and Shany, Yuval, The Manual on International Courts and Tribunals (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 88–89 Google Scholar.
62 In accord with most comparative research on international courts, the SADC Tribunal is included in this figure based on its status in 2010, even though its operation has since been suspended. See Appendix for information on how each IC is coded on each of the four types of access. The supplementary appendix lists all sources and specific provisions coded, available at: {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0260210516000218}.
63 Dahl, Robert, Dilemmas of Pluralist Democracy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), p. 6 Google Scholar.
64 Gathii, James T., ‘Mission creep or a search for relevance: the East African Court of Justice’s human rights strategy’, Duke Journal of Comparative and International Law, 24:2 (2013), pp. 249–296 Google Scholar.
65 Maurice Tomilson v. Trinidad and Tobago & Belize (2014), Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) 2 (OJ); Shanique Myrie v. Barbados (2013), CCJ 3 (OJ).
66 Cichowski, The European Court and Civil Society.
67 Keck, Margaret and Sikkink, Kathryn, Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998)Google Scholar.
68 Cichowski, The European Court and Civil Society.
69 Bogdandy, ‘The democratic legitimacy of international courts’, p. 370.
70 Williams, Sarah and Woolaver, Hannah, ‘The role of amicus curiae before international criminal tribunals’, International Criminal Law Review, 6:2 (2006), p. 185 Google Scholar.
71 Eckersley, Robyn, ‘A green public sphere in the WTO?: the amicus curiae interventions in the transatlantic biotech dispute’, European Journal of International Relations, 13:3 (2007), pp. 329–356 Google Scholar.
72 Holzscheiter, Anna, ‘Representation as power and performative practice: global civil society advocacy for working children’, Review of International Studies (forthcoming), DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0260210515000145 Google Scholar.
73 Several ICs have seen a temporal increase in their dockets as a result of direct and indirect access. For example, see Cichwoski, ‘Courts, rights and democratic participation’; Alter, The New Terrain of International Law.
74 While we argue that access to ICs fosters participation beyond the state, and thus global democratisation, some scholars have argued that these same features can improve the internal legitimacy of ICs as well. von Bogdandy, Armin and Venzke, Ingo, ‘On the democratic legitimation of international judicial lawmaking’, German Law Journal, 12:5 (2011), pp. 1341–1370 Google Scholar. See also Grossman, ‘The normative legitimacy of international courts’.
75 Grant and Keohane, ‘Accountability and abuses of power’.
76 Alter, The New Terrain of International Law, p. 202.
77 Ibid., p. 286. A prominent example of a case where an IC exercises international constitutional review is the Kadi case decided by the Court of Justice of the European Union. Case C-402/05 P and C-415/05, P. Kadi and Al Barakaat International Foundation v. Council and Commission (2008) ECR I–6351.
78 Ibid., p. 295.
79 See Appendix for more information.
80 Alter, The New Terrain of International Law, pp. 210–11.
81 Ioannidis, Michael, ‘A procedural approach to the legitimacy of international adjudication: Developing standards of participation in WTO law’, German Law Journal, 12.5 (2011), pp. 1175–1202 Google Scholar.
82 Alter, The New Terrain of International Law, p. 202.
83 Dingwerth, ‘Global democracy and the democratic minimum’.
84 Habermas, Between Facts and Norms.
85 See Appendix for information on how each IC is coded along these dimensions.
86 Shapiro, Martin, ‘The reason giving requirement’, University of Chicago Legal Forum (1992), pp. 179–220 Google Scholar.
87 Forst, The Right to Justification.
88 Helfer, Laurence and Slaughter, Anne-Marie, ‘Towards a theory of effective supranational adjudication’, Yale Law Journal, 107:2 (1997), p. 321 Google Scholar.
89 Weiler, J. H. H., ‘Epilogue: the judicial après Nice’, in Gráinne de Búrca and J. H. H. Weiler (eds), The European Court of Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 225 Google Scholar; Perju, Vlad, ‘Reason and authority in the European Court of Justice’, Virginia Journal of International Law, 49:2 (2009), pp. 307–377 Google Scholar.
90 Sunstein, Cass, ‘Public deliberation, affirmative action, and the Supreme Court’, California Law Review, 84:4 (1996), p. 1183 Google Scholar.
91 Instead we offered separate rationale for adopting these values, derived from democratic theory and recent work on global democracy.
92 Bogdandy, ‘The democratic legitimacy of international courts’; Bogdandy and Venzke, ‘On the democratic legitimation’; Grossman, ‘The normative legitimacy of international courts’.
93 Valentini, ’No global demos’.
94 Steenbergen, Marco R., Bächtiger, André, Spörndli, Markus, and Steiner, Jürg, ‘Measuring political deliberation: a Discourse Quality Index’, Comparative European Politics, 1 (2003), pp. 21–48 Google Scholar.
Supplementary Appendix
