International Courts and Democratic Politics

Abstract

This chapter discusses how the new terrain of international law is an artifact of a number of indirectly connected decisions: the decision to expand the substantive reach of international law, to embed international legal rules into national legal orders, to expand the extraterritorial enforcement capacity of domestic judges, and to create more international courts with a compulsory jurisdiction and access for nonstate actors to initiate litigation. International law and the prospect of international court (IC) legal review are now creating a global judicialization of politics regarding a growing range of issues. As the various case studies in the book have demonstrated, international courts are now adjudicating issues that used to be entirely subjects of national determination. And their decisions are affecting both domestic and international politics.