Impartiality in international adjudication

Thesis

Impartiality is generally accepted as central to the rule of law, indispensable for legitimacy and effectiveness, necessary for legal interpretation and fundamental for fair treatment. But there are key issues that remain unresolved: What should impartiality mean in the context of international adjudication? How can one proceed to identify the principles and rules of impartiality? Why do different international courts and tribunals apply different rules and standards of impartiality?

By providing an understanding of the concept of impartiality, this thesis seeks (1) to explain the pluralism of the principles and rules of impartiality and the insufficiency of the legal norms to guarantee the full achievement of impartiality, and (2) to illustrate the relationship between the functions and characteristics of different international courts and tribunals and the principles and rules of impartiality that correspondingly apply to these courts and tribunals.

Moreover, the thesis seeks to identify the principles and rules of impartiality to be applied by international courts and tribunals when the statutes of these judicial organs do not specify the principles and rules to be applied. The thesis recognizes the inherent indeterminacy in answering this question as a result of the argumentation structures composed of induction and deduction underlying the source-based approach in international law, but nonetheless proceeds to employ analogical reasoning to clarify further the content of principles and rules of impartiality applicable to international courts and tribunals. The thesis also identifies functions and characteristics of international adjudication that can be utilised to decide what principles and rules of impartiality are applicable to different forms of international adjudication.

Authors: Mao, X

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-bxrgekm5x
• Type of award: MPhil
• Level of award: Masters
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford