International Courts Versus Non Compliance Mechanisms

Non-compliance mechanisms are more important than ever for helping ensure the effective implementation of treaties, now and into the future.

With contributions by a multinational group of academic scholars, judges and registrars of international tribunals, and experts from Non-Governmental Organizations, this book explores the role of civil society with regards to international courts and tribunals, as well as compliance mechanisms set up especially in the environmental field. The areas of human rights, international criminal law and international environmental law are the main focus of the study, in the light of the well established role of NGOs in Human Rights Courts and UN bodies as well as their remarkable success in setting up the International Criminal Court and the promising avenues which are now open in the compliance bodies of environmental law conventions. Broader questions and bodies such as the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea as well as European courts and tribunals are also examined.

Explores the contributions of international courts and tribunals in terms of performance by offering a comparative analysis of international courts.

It is widely understood today that nothing is more urgently needed than international agreement on the scale, application, and enforcement of environmental law. This outstanding book - a major contribution to the debate - demonstrates that existing international judicial bodies have already taken giant steps toward overcoming the insufficiency of international law enforcement with standards, compliance mechanisms, and new law development in the field of environmental law. The author not only presents a detailed analysis of a wealth of relevant case law, but also outlines a model suggesting that a commitment to international judicial control can be used to contain deviance within acceptable limits, ensure harmonized interaction among regimes, and clarify the meaning and application of environmental norms.

An interdisciplinary volume exploring the concept of legitimacy in relation to international courts and what can drive and weaken it.

This book explores the best mechanisms for helping bring about compliance with international treaties. In recent years, many international treaties have included non-compliance mechanisms (NCMs) to facilitate implementation and promote parties' compliance with their obligations. These NCMs exist alongside the formal dispute resolution processes of international courts and tribunals. The authors bring together a wide legal and geographical spectrum of views from different parts of the world representing novel insights into NCMs' contribution to treaty implementation and compliance. The research has cast important light on how procedural innovations may help render NCMs more effective, as well as on the circumstances in which they may be needed, including particularly where nations share common interests, populations are interdependent, and implementation makes significant administrative, regulatory and political demands. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

The book examines the compliance record of states parties to proceedings before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial body of the United Nations.

A theory of international courts that assumes member states can ignore international agreements and adverse rulings, and that the court does not have informational advantages.