Tuesday 28th February 2012, 18:00

Sir Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lectures Part 1: The Concept of Jurisdiction and Admissibility in International Adjudication - A Theoretical Framework

A series of three lectures by Professor Yuval Shany, Hersch Lauterpacht Chair in International Law, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The Sir Hersch Lauterpacht Lecture is a series of annual lectures given in Cambridge to commemorate the unique contribution to the development of international law of Sir Hersch Lauterpacht.

The lectures are given by a person of eminence in the field of international law and a revised and expanded version of the lectures is usually published in the Hersch Lauterpacht Lecture Series by Cambridge University Press.

Professor Yuval Shany is the Hersch Lauterpacht Chair in International Law at the Law Faculty of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He also serves currently as a board member in the International Law Forum at the Hebrew University, a director in the Project on International Courts and Tribunals (PICT), and a senior research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute. Professor Shany has degrees in law from the Hebrew University (LL.B, 1995 cum laude), New York University (LL.M., 1997) and the University of London (Ph.D., 2001). He has published a number of books and articles on international courts and arbitration tribunals and other international law issues such as international human rights and international humanitarian law. He is the recipient of the 2004 American Society of International Law book award (creative legal scholarship) and a 2008 recipient of a European Research Council grant awarded to pioneering research leaders.

Professor Shany has taught in a number of law schools in Israel, and has been in recent years a research fellow in Harvard and Amsterdam Universities and a visiting professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, Michigan University Law School, Columbia University Law School and the Faculty of Law of the University of Sydney. He currently coordinates a research group studying the effectiveness of international adjudication and is a member of a study group looking into the relationship between substantive national and international criminal law.

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Watch & Listen: Lecture 2 | Lecture 3 | Q&A Session

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Hersch Lectures 2012 - Series Summary:

International courts are playing an increasingly important role in international life - resolving an ever-growing number of disputes, and providing international actors with on-going law-interpretation and law-application services. More generally, they constitute a crucial element in an emerging rule of law system operating at the international level.

Jurisdiction and admissibility are key concepts that mediate between power and law - as well as between the rule of law ideal and its actual implementation by international courts. The two concepts describe, predict and justify the scope of judicial involvement in the regulation of international transactions, as well as intervention in international conflicts. Furthermore, jurisdictional and admissibility rules determine the length of the normative 'shadow' of international courts - i.e., the number of transactions affected by the prospects of international adjudication, and affect thereby the function of law in international relations.

The lecture series will discuss the concept of jurisdiction and admissibility in the structure and operation of international courts, and examine – from a critical perspective – parts of the relevant case law of
international courts in which jurisdictional and admissibility rules were used (or abused). Such an examination seeks, inter alia, to offer new analytical tools for understanding the function of jurisdiction and admissibility in advancing the effectiveness and legitimacy of international adjudication.

Part 2 » | Part 3 »

Lecture 1: The Concept of Jurisdiction and Admissibility in International Adjudication - A Theoretical Framework

Tuesday 28 February 2012

The first lecture will describe conferral of jurisdiction on an international court as a policy choice made by international law makers, as well as by the disputing parties, to channel certain disputes and problems to law-based avenues, at the expense of power-based diplomacy. Viewed as the product of a conscious decision by international actors, jurisdiction can be explained as a form of delegation whose legitimacy emanates from consent by a relevant set of constituencies, as well as from the relationship to the legal regimes that international courts serve. Still, delegation and consent also impose constraints on the power of international courts, as well as on their effectiveness and legitimacy – reflected in jurisdictional and admissibility challenges raised by parties to litigation (i.e., challenges against the very existence of power by an international court v. the manner in which power is to be applied).
The empowering and constraining aspects of jurisdictional and admissibility rules, often place international judges in a conflict between competing sets of community expectations – a conflict further complicated by the independent institutional interests of international courts that may pull in yet another direction.

NEXT: Lecture 2: The Law Governing Jurisdictional Decisions of International Courts »

Lauterpacht Centre - Lent Term Lecture Programme and Information »

Further information on the Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lecture Series »