Farrell, Michelle --- "Distribution" [2017] ELECD 375; in Schabas, A. William; Murphy, Shannonbrooke (eds), "Research Handbook on International Courts and Tribunals" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 337

Book Title: Research Handbook on International Courts and Tribunals

Editor(s): Schabas, A. William; Murphy, Shannonbrooke

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781781005019

Section: Chapter 12

Section Title: Distribution

Author(s): Farrell, Michelle

Number of pages: 40

Abstract/Description:

This chapter asks whether international courts and tribunals challenge or reinforce the distribution of international justice and, second, whether they achieve a transition from power-based to law-based international relations. It argues that actually international courts and tribunals are somewhat fetishized in the literature. They are burdened with high – often impossible – expectations. Their role, competences and capacity are often over inflated. International courts and tribunals do not simply challenge or reinforce the distribution of international justice – even the contention that they have a significant part to play in reviewing or determining this distribution exaggerates their role and their competences. This contention applies both to the procedural side of international justice – in terms of access to justice – and to the substantive side of international justice – the realization of substantive justice. The existing international legal order is characterized by radical and structural inequality in the distribution of international justice. International courts and tribunals are part of this international legal order and, therefore, from both institutional and political representation perspectives, are not in a position, and, at any rate, arguably, could not be in a position to challenge the existing order and bring about social or political change. KEYWORDS: international justice, global public goods, Rawls, cosmopolitanism, TWAIL.