Evolution of approaches to international courts’ effectiveness assessment

Abstract

International courts’ effectiveness is quite a contested concept that requires strictly defined and clearly described criteria. Numerous legal scholars have tried to describe this phenomenon. L. R. Helfer is recognised as the initial scholar to emphasise the classical legal criteria of international courts’ effectiveness. Subsequently, Y. Shany has proposed modern criteria that blend social and legal approaches. More recently, G. Navarro and certain other academics have applied the classical criteria developed by L. R. Helfer to current realities. For example, C. Calabria applied “classical legal criteria” for modern legal institutes. G. Navarro has specifically examined the activity of one particular international court, employing both classical and new criteria, including the so-called “efficiency chain”. However, there are certain gaps in these studies. As indicated above, legal scholars have mostly focused on development of new criteria rather than on analysis of existing ones. This results in a lack of comparative and critical analysis of all the effectiveness criteria tested throughout time. Moreover, there is scarce research on feasibility of applying social or other non-legal approaches. Hence, this paper is dedicated to the analysis of certain gaps mentioned above. It examines the historical trajectory of the development in application of different effectiveness criteria for international courts. The main aim of this paper is to structurise the doctrinal approaches to assessment of the international courts’ effectiveness developed over time and to practically compare the described methods.