Interpretative Authority and the International Judiciary

Without a clear delineation of their competences, the indeterminacy latent in international law opens up a powerful normative function for international courts with respect to the interpretation and development of international law. This chapter seeks to identify how international courts work within the system of international law to construct interpretative authority, and the limits within which such a claim is constructed. Making the claim that an essential role of the judicial engagement with international law is to safeguard the coherence of the international legal order, it will conclude with some reflections about the responsibility that ought to be assumed by judicial institutions when exercising normative authority within the international legal order.