The Doctrinal Approach in International Human Rights Scholarship

Abstract

Studies reveal that academics who engage in doctrinal research in the discipline of law rarely describe their reasons for doing so or how they go about it. Perhaps this is because doctrinal research does not lend itself to straightforward explanation but rather is a genre of research." That is largely intuitively, rather than rationally, understood amongst lawyers and researchers”. Doctrinal legal research in the field of international human rights scholarship appears to be no different; while this method of research infuses a great deal of human rights scholarship, there is a dearth of reflection on its intrinsic value or indeed purpose in the field and even less concrete instruction on what it entails in terms of its methodological requirements. In an attempt to fill this lacuna, this chapter begins with an overview of the doctrinal method in general terms, highlighting its strengths as well as its weaknesses. It goes on to consider the specific challenges facing the doctrinal analyst when researching in the field of international human rights, before analyzing some concrete examples of the doctrinal method in action in this context.