"The New Terrain of International Law: Courts, Politics, Rights"
A talk by Karen Alter, Professor of Political Science and Law, Northwestern University
Thursday, February 26, 20151:30 PM - 2:30 PM
UCLA Law School - Room 1430
Audio: To listen to audio from the lecture click here.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Karen Alter's current research investigates how the proliferation of international legal mechanisms is changing international relations. Her award winning book The New Terrain of International Law: Courts, Politics, Rights (Princeton University Press, 2014) provides a framework for comparing and understanding the influence of the twenty-four operational international courts, and for thinking about how different domains of domestic and international politics are transformed through the creation of international courts. Alter continues her research on international courts as co-director of the institutionalization research cluster at the iCourts Center of Excellence, Copenhagen University Faculty of Law, and through ongoing collaborative research on international courts in Latin America and Africa.
She is author of The European Court’s Political Power (Oxford University Press, 2009) and Establishing the Supremacy of European Law (Oxford University press, 2001) and more than forty articles and book chapters on the politics of international law, comparative international courts, and international regime complexity. She is co-editor of the Oxford Handbook on International Adjudication (Oxford University Press, 2014) and co-author of International Legal Transplants: the Law and Politics of the Andean Tribunal of Justice (Oxford University Press, 2016, with Laurence Helfer).
Alter teaches courses on International Law and International Relations, International Organizations, International Relations Theory, International Courts and Tribunals, Ethics in International Affairs, the International Politics of Human Rights at both the graduate and undergraduate levels, and at the faculty of law at Northwestern University. She also participates in research training through the iCourts Center of Excellence, at the University of Copenhagen Faculty of Law.
ABOUT THE BOOK
In 1989, when the Cold War ended, there were six permanent international courts. Today there are more than two dozen that have collectively issued over thirty-seven thousand binding legal rulings. The New Terrain of International Law charts the developments and trends in the creation and role of international courts, and explains how the delegation of authority to international judicial institutions influences global and domestic politics.
The New Terrain of International Law presents an in-depth look at the scope and powers of international courts operating around the world. Focusing on dispute resolution, enforcement, administrative review, and constitutional review, Karen Alter argues that international courts alter politics by providing legal, symbolic, and leverage resources that shift the political balance in favor of domestic and international actors who prefer policies more consistent with international law objectives. International courts name violations of the law and perhaps specify remedies. Alter explains how this limited power--the power to speak the law--translates into political influence, and she considers eighteen case studies, showing how international courts change state behavior. The case studies, spanning issue areas and regions of the world, collectively elucidate the political factors that often intervene to limit whether or not international courts are invoked and whether international judges dare to demand significant changes in state practices
Sponsor(s): Burkle Center for International Relations, Political Science, UCLA International & Comparative Law Program