Critical International Law Speaker Series

Contemporary invocations of the ‘international community’ are looked upon with suspicion, especially amongst critical legal scholars. Nevertheless, international courts such as the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) have recently been called to clarify what norms ought to be considered as being owed to the international community, and who has standing to invoke a state’s responsibility for their breach. This paper explores how a universalistic sense of international community has been engaged within the contemporary jurisprudence of the ICJ and ECtHR, in an effort to uncover how, if at all, their practice may further inform our understanding of the limits faced by those seeking to harvest the transformative potential of international law. Specifically, it embarks on a doctrinal analysis of the concept of obligations erga omnes norms, as raised within the jurisprudence of the ICJ, and the ECtHR’s restrictive approach to extraterritorial jurisdiction, to ultimately show that a key issue, irrespective of the Courts’ differences, is the role that procedure plays in limiting the part international dispute settlement bodies can play in the pursuit of radical change.