The United States and International Courts: Getting the Cost-Benefit Analysis Right

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511819759.014

13 - The United States and International Courts: Getting the Cost-Benefit Analysis Right

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012

Cesare P. R. Romano

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Cesare P. R. Romano

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Cesare P. R. Romano: Affiliation:
Loyola Marymount University, California

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Summary

Our general approach to international courts and tribunals is pragmatic. In our view, such courts and tribunals should not be seen as an end in themselves but rather as potential tools to advance shared international interests in developing and promoting the rule of law, ensuring justice and accountability, and solving legal disputes. Consistent with this approach, we evaluate the contributions that proposed international courts and tribunals may make on a case-by-case basis, just as we consider the advantages and disadvantages of addressing particular matters through international judicial mechanisms rather than diplomatic or other means.

Thus, John Bellinger, the legal adviser of the U.S. Secretary of State at the time he penned the opening chapter of this book, summarized the United States' approach to international courts. He could have said the same about any other nation in the world. It is difficult to disagree with such a commonsensical maxim. I am not aware of any government, democratic or dictatorial, that would create international courts and subject itself to them for the sake of it. Who would favor establishing an effective independent international authority, the sole purpose of which would be to constrain sovereignty, without significant benefits in return? Pragmatic governments will base decisions to create or accept the jurisdiction of international courts on the basis of a cool-headed cost-benefit analysis. Many factors are taken into account in that calculation, some of which can be empirically explained and pinpointed, whereas others are related to deep-seated cultural and historical forces.

Type: Chapter
Information: The Sword and the Scales
The United States and International Courts and Tribunals
, pp. 419 - 444

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511819759.014 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2009

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