Judicial Deference In International Adjudication

International courts and tribunals are increasingly asked to pass judgment on matters that are traditionally considered to fall within the domestic jurisdiction of States. Especially in the fields of human rights, investment, and trade law, international adjudicators commonly evaluate decisions of national authorities that have been made in the course of democratic procedures and public deliberation. A controversial question is whether international adjudicators should review such decisions de novo or show deference to domestic authorities. This book investigates how various international courts and tribunals have responded to this question. In addition to a comparative analysis, the book provides a normative argument, discussing whether different forms of deference are justified in international adjudication. It proposes a distinction between epistemic deference, which is based on the superior capacity of domestic authorities to make factual and technical assessments, and constitutional deference, which is based on the democratic legitimacy of domestic decision-making. The book concludes that epistemic deference is a prudent acknowledgement of the limited expertise of international adjudicators, whereas the case for constitutional deference depends on the relative power of the reviewing court vis-à-vis the domestic legal order.

International courts and tribunals are often asked to review decisions originally made by domestic decision-makers. This can often be a source of tension, as the international courts and tribunals need to judge how far to defer to the original decisions of the national bodies. As international courts and tribunals have proliferated, different courts have applied differing levels of deference to those originial decisions, which can lead to a fragmentation in international law. International courts in such positions rely on two key doctrines: the standard of review and the margin of appreciation. The standard of review establishes the extent to which national decisions relating to factual, legal, or political issues arising in the case are re-examined in the international court. The margin of appreciation is the extent to which national legislative, executive, and judicial decision-makers are allowed to reflect diversity in their interpretation of human rights obligations. The book begins by providing an overview of the margin of appreciation and standard of review, recognising that while the margin of appreciation explicitly acknowledges the existence of such deference, the standard of review does not: it is rather a procedural mechanism. It looks in-depth at how the public policy exception has been assessed by the European Court of Justice and the WTO dispute settlement bodies. It examines how the European Court of Human Rights has taken an evidence-based approach towards the margin of appreciation, as well as how it has addressed issues of hate speech. The Inter-American system is also investigated, and it is established how far deference is possible within that legal organisation. Finally, the book studies how a range of other international courts, such as the International Criminal Court, and the Law of the Sea Tribunal, have approached these two core doctrines.

This book investigates how international adjudicators defer to State decision-making authority, and what that reveals about the domestic-international interface.

This book investigates judicial deference to the administration in judicial review, a concept and legal practice that can be found to a greater or lesser degree in every constitutional system. In each system, deference functions differently, because the positioning of the judiciary with regard to the separation of powers, the role of the courts as a mechanism of checks and balances, and the scope of judicial review differ. In addition, the way deference works within the constitutional system itself is complex, multi-faceted and often covert. Although judicial deference to the administration is a topical theme in comparative administrative law, a general examination of national systems is still lacking. As such, a theoretical and empirical review is called for. Accordingly, this book presents national reports from 15 jurisdictions, ranging from Argentina, Canada and the US, to the EU. Constituting the outcome of the 20th General Congress of the International Academy of Comparative Law, held in Fukuoka, Japan in July 2018, it offers a valuable and unique resource for the study of comparative administrative law.

This study considers the ftrst century of international adjudication as a permanent fixture of the international society. By using speciftc international courts to which I was attached, as either a researcher or an employee, I was allowed to consider the various limitations to effective adjudication on the international plane. I recall the day in January of 1992 when the seeds of this manuscript were ftrst planted. I was on the fourth-floor of the Loeb Building at Carleton University leafing through a copy of Thomas Burgenthal's International Human Rights Law in a Nutshell when I came upon a chapter on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. "How could this be?", I thought. "A little known human rights court in a part of the world fraught with human rights abuses". That semester, I followed through on a course in international human rights law with Professor Maureen Davies and accepted a University Fellowship to do graduate work at Brock University (Canada) the following year. Supported in my interest by Professor James Patrick Sewell, I sought and received an Organization of American States Fellowship to spend an academic year studying the Inter American Court of Human Rights, in situ, in San Jose, Costa Rica. It is from this period that I witnessed ftrst-hand how the Inter-American Court, although similar on paper to the European Court of Human Rights, was limited in its effectiveness through the lack of ftnancing and stafftng allocated to it by American States.

International human rights adjudicators, while facing urgent cases, have used provisional measures in order to prevent irreparable harm, e.g. to order States to halt an expulsion, the execution of a death sentence, the destruction of the natural habitat, as well as to ensure access to health care in detention or protection against death threats. In the practice of the various adjudicators, the traditional concept of provisional measures has undergone a process of humanization. Preventing Irreparable Harm addresses the question of how such provisional measures can be made as persuasive as possible. Apart from the Inter-American Court, none of the human rights adjudicators motivate or publish their provisional measures. Yet the book analyzes their best practices and obstacles, determines the underlying rationale for their use of provisional measures, and establishes the core of the concept of provisional measures that all adjudicators have in common. It argues that clarity - on what belongs to the core of the concept and on what does not belong to the concept at all - enhances the persuasive force of provisional measures. The practices of the international adjudicators that are made accessible in this book will prove useful in the ongoing cross-fertilization that occurs among these adjudicators. Moreover, the analysis provided allows individual victims, their counsel, NGOs, as well as international institutions, to address more effectively urgent human rights cases.

Offers a new understanding of traditional rules on jurisdiction and admissibility of cases before international courts and tribunals.