Shany on Judicial Independence

udicial Independence as an Indicator of International Court Effectiveness: A Goal-Based Approach

Yuval Shany

Hebrew University of Jerusalem - Faculty of Law and Institute of Criminology



THE CULTURE OF JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE: CONCEPTUAL FOUNDATIONS AND PRACTICAL CHALLENGES, p. 251, Shimon Shetreet and Christopher Forsyth, eds., Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2012
Hebrew University International Law Forum Working Paper No. 01-12

Abstract:     
The chapter seeks to contribute to the debate on the relationship between judicial independence and international court effectiveness by applying to it a model for international judicial effectiveness developed by the author elsewhere. In doing so, I hope to illustrate some of the problems attendant to the “broad brush” position taken by writers who have claimed a correlation between high levels of judicial independence and low levels of effectiveness. I posit that the proper question we should be discussing is not whether judicial independence is generally conducive to international court effectiveness (a question that assumes a linear relationship between the two variables); instead, we should ask questions such as which international courts are better served by judicial independence? what level of actual independence should courts strive to attain? what image of independence should they seek to project?
Number of Pages in PDF File: 19
Keywords: International courts, international tribunals, judicial independence, judicial effectiveness, international criminal courts, international criminal tribunal for Yugoslavia, international criminal tribunal for Rwanda, judicial functions


Full text available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1982157