Selection and appointment in international adjudication : insights from political science

Stiansen’s work was supported by the Research Council of Norway through its Centres of Excellence funding scheme, project number 223274 (PluriCourts). Financial support for Larsson’s work was provided by the Swedish Research Council, project no. 2018-01693.This article summarizes insights from political science and empirical legal scholarship concerning selection and appointment of adjudicators to permanent international courts (ICs). This scholarship suggests that designers of ICs face challenging trade-offs in balancing judicial independence and accountability, as well as in promoting descriptive representation and necessary qualifications on the bench. The article considers different institutional design features related to appointment procedures: representation, reappointment, screening procedures and procedures for removing judges. Representation is discussed in a series of sections considering full or selective representation, voting rules and geographic and gender quotas and aspirational targets. Throughout, we draw on data on 24 ICs to illustrate the different appointment procedures and institutional features.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

The Politics of Compliance with International Human Rights Court Judgments

Courts are increasingly important for domestic and international politics. Yet, judicial power is limited by courts’ reliance on other actors to implement their rulings. This dissertation examines the politics of compliance with European Court of Human Rights and Inter-American Court of Human Rights judgments. A central finding is that compliance is affected by judgment characteristics, which can be influenced by the judges. By providing remedial indications, judges can facilitate compliance monitoring and provide political cover for the implementation of unpopular measures. By contrast, judicial dissent can increase compliance problems by undermining a judgment’s social legitimacy and providing justifications for non-compliance. Compliance is also affected by the domestic politics of the respondent state. Veto-player problems tend to delay compliance when legislative changes are needed. Accountability institutions are important for facilitating domestic enforcement of judgments. Finally, fierce political competition creates incentives for sustaining the international human rights judiciary and can therefore increase the willingness to implement costly rulings

Post-Conflict Democracy for Durable Peace

Elections have been found to increase the risk of conflict recurrence. In this thesis I investigate how institutions that constrain election winners mitigate the destabilizing effects of elections. I propose that post-conflict elections will only increase the chances of conflict recurrences in cases where institutional constraints on elected governments are weak. In these cases the post-conflict commitment problem makes it difficult for election winners to reassure elections losers that the settlement of the conflict will be respected. This makes it less likely that the losing side will be willing to hand over power to an elected government. Where the broader institutional framework is strong enough to constrain election winners after they assume office, elections may help pave the way for durable peace. I employ a set of Cox regression models on a dataset of all peace spells in the 1972-2005 period to test this proposition empirically. The analysis finds robust support for the interaction between post-conflict elections and institutional constraints on elected governments. Where no such constraints are in place, post-conflict elections significantly increase the risk of conflict recurrence. If these institutions are strong, post-conflict elections are related to durable peace. Thus, whereas existing studies have found either a negative or no effect of post-conflict elections, I demonstrate that the effect of post-conflict elections is conditioned by the broader institutional context. This finding is robust to various model specifications, suggesting that a post-conflict democracy where competitive elections are combined with institutions of checks and balances may make peace more durable

Delayed but not derailed: legislative compliance with European Court of Human Rights judgments

Legislative changes can be crucial for implementing human rights. This article investigates how the need for legislative changes influences compliance with European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) judgments. I argue that the need for legislative changes might influence compliance politics in two ways. First, ECtHR interference with the will of elected parliaments is controversial in several European states. Such controversy might increase the risk of defiance of judgments requiring legislative changes. Second, the greater number of veto players needed to pass legislative is likely to delay compliance. Using original implementation data, I show that the need for legislative changes tends to delay compliance, but does not increase the risk of long-term defiance. The ECtHR's ability to eventually prompt legislative changes is not smaller than its ability to induce other reforms. I also find that delays associated with the need for legislative changes are greater in states with greater numbers of ideologically diverse veto players, in states with a proportional electoral system, and in states without domestic judicial review

(Non)Renewable Terms and Judicial Independence in the European Court of Human Rights

Do renewable terms compromise judicial independence? Scholars of various courts have demonstrated relationships between judges' voting patterns and the interests of actors responsible for their (re)appointment. However, it is typically unclear if such relationships are (at least partially) explained by judges acting strategically to achieve reappointment or if they are (fully) attributable to selection effects. I exploit a 2010 reform of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) to estimate the casual effect of removing reappointment opportunities on judges' independence. The ECtHR bench consists of one judge from each member state and judges sit ex officio on cases involving their nominating state. Prior to 2010, terms were renewable. Judges seeking reappointment were therefore incentivized to favor their nominating states. In 2010, the terms were made nonrenewable with immediate effect for judges on the Court. I show that removing reappointment opportunities signifficantly reduced judges' tendency to favor their nominating states

Replication Data for: Directing Compliance? Remedial Approach and Compliance with European Court of Human Rights Judgments

Replication Data for: Directing Compliance? Remedial Approach and Compliance with European Court of Human Rights Judgment