Balancing International Judicial Independence: Legal and Political Constraints in Regional Courts

Regional courts increasingly shape domestic law and policy, raising pressing questions about their democratic legitimacy. Balancing International Judicial Independence offers a groundbreaking framework for reconciling judicial independence with legitimate checks on judicial power. While independence is essential for courts to function, unchecked authority can be equally problematic.

This book advances a nuanced approach that incorporates accountability and oversight without compromising independence. Part One introduces a conceptual framework for international judicial independence, tailored to the unique institutional and political contexts of regional courts and avoiding the uncritical application of domestic models. It draws on comparative analysis of courts in Europe and the Americas, including the European Court of Human Rights, the European Court of Justice, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and the Andean Tribunal of Justice. Part Two explores the normative foundations for constraining judicial power, examining legal accountability mechanisms and adapting the principle of checks and balances to the international sphere. Political constraints are reconceptualized as forms of institutional interdependence within a refined checks and balances framework. Part Three tackles the implications of using checks and balances as a normative guiding principle and critically analyses national and regional institutional sources of constraint on selected courts, as well as specific mechanisms like judicial selection, political override, and non-compliance.

Filling a critical gap in the literature, this book provides a principled framework for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers to assess existing arrangements and guide institutional design in international adjudication.