The wheels of international justice turn slowly
Last week, the judges at the Hague-based International Court of Justice deigned to rule on the case filed by Georgia against Russia back in August 2008, in the midst of active combat between the countries. The outcome was a modest victory for Russia: the court did not even consider the merits of the dispute because ...
Last week, the judges at the Hague-based International Court of Justice deigned to rule on the case filed by Georgia against Russia back in August 2008, in the midst of active combat between the countries. The outcome was a modest victory for Russia: the court did not even consider the merits of the dispute because it found that it lacked jurisdiction. For a good summary of the ruling and reaction to it, see this post at Opinio Juris.
Last week, the judges at the Hague-based International Court of Justice deigned to rule on the case filed by Georgia against Russia back in August 2008, in the midst of active combat between the countries. The outcome was a modest victory for Russia: the court did not even consider the merits of the dispute because it found that it lacked jurisdiction. For a good summary of the ruling and reaction to it, see this post at Opinio Juris.
Both countries had lined up big legal guns to fight their proxy war at the court, and the decision is now being dissected by legal scholars around the world (and no doubt converted into law review articles that few will read). But the ruling barely registered in the world media. In part, that’s because of the complexity of the legal issues; Article 22 of the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination–the key provision in this case–does not lend itself to pithy analysis. But the lack of attention and interest also reflects the fact that the court took almost three years to issue a ruling that didn’t even address the underlying dispute. The Russia-Georgia conflict is now ancient history for most of the world.
The glacial pace of key international judicial institutions is a significant impediment to their effectiveness and relevance. Bosnia first filed a case against Serbia for genocide in 1993, as Sarajevo endured bombardment and sniper fire. The court finally ruled in February 2007, more than a decade after the Dayton Peace Accords ended that conflict. Unfortunately, a similar pattern is emerging at the International Criminal Court, which has yet to complete a trial. The court’s trial judges have repeatedly stopped and then restarted ongoing trials as they considered a variety of procedural and evidentiary questions and as appeals judges ruled on them.
Judges of course have an obligation to the law and cannot be asked to time their decisions to maximize public attention and interest. But unless those who have an influence on the global legal architecure can find a way to expedite these proceedings, the relevance of the carefully wrought rulings they produce will be limited.
David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist
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