Roundtable with Guillaume Larouche
International Courts (Trans)formations: The Role of European Lawyers in the 'Fabrique' of the International Criminal Court and the Proposed Multilateral Investment Court
Abstract
The view that the rule of law exported outside Europe is substantive, because it comprises liberal democratic values, has reached a certain level of consensus among European institutions and scholars. Pursuant to this view, European international law policies have focused on the creation and support of strong “international rule of law institutions,” such as international courts and tribunals, leading to their “Europeanization.” This view is generally relying on legal politics or legal normativity approaches to the study of law. Going beyond the story of law and legal doctrine, this research project mobilizes the theoretical lens provided by Pierre Bourdieu’s reflective sociology and field theory, as well as the scholarship of post-Bourdieu socio-legal scholars, and the conceptual insights provided by Bruno Latour. Using the methodological toolbox they provide – lengthy interviews, relational biographies, ‘artefacts’ analysis, and participant observation stays – this research aims to capture the daily export processes of the European conception of the rule of law by European lawyers. This research project, which takes place at the confluence of the European and international legal fields, investigates how European lawyers and the socialization instruments they use influence the process of exporting the European conception of the rule of law in the context of the (trans)formations of the International Criminal Court and the proposed Multilateral Investment Court. It suggests that the conception of the international rule of law put forward by European lawyers through the exportation process in the international legal fields depends on their own analyses and priorities and potentially diverges from the European institutional conception of the rule of law. This research project ultimately argues that the cosmopolitan composition of the international legal fields studied allows a more favourable environment for the transplantation of the European conception of the rule of law at the international level.
Meeting ID: 658 2891 3360
Passcode: 749603